Technological Challenges when Integrating Direct-to-Consumer Solutions with Existing Clinical and Enterprise Systems

New technology is constantly being created, tested, and adopted in healthcare – this does not mean that we are abandoning our previous systems, though. Instead, we are almost always integrating the new into our existing systems. And though the new solution may have been tested over and over again, there are always bugs and challenges that were not foreseen, especially when it comes to integration.

To get a better understanding of this, we reached out to our incredible Healthcare IT Today Community to ask— what technology challenges arise when integrating direct-to-consumer solutions with existing clinical and enterprise systems? Below is what they had to share.

Kamya Elawadhi, Co-Founder and President at Doceree
Integration is where ambition meets reality, and the gap is wider than most anticipate. EHRs, pharmacy systems, and payer infrastructure were built for provider workflows, not consumer interoperability. Layering direct-to-consumer solutions onto this requires more than API connectivity; it requires rethinking how data flows across the care continuum. Consumer-generated data is often unstructured and difficult to reconcile with clinical data standards, creating noise rather than insight.

Most critically, integration must be bidirectional, improving consumer experience without disrupting provider workflows. Organizations that invest in adaptable architecture from the outset navigate this far more successfully than those retrofitting solutions onto legacy infrastructure.

Jason Griffin, Managing Director of Digital Health Strategy and Cyber Security Practice at Nordic
The biggest challenge is usually connecting the technology to the complex ecosystem behind it. Many healthcare organizations are managing a mix of EHRs, legacy applications, revenue cycle systems, data warehouses, and third-party platforms. Introducing a new digital front door, virtual care solution, or consumer engagement platform often exposes gaps in interoperability, data governance, workflow design, and identity management.

We frequently see organizations underestimate the operational side of integration. Success depends on more than APIs and interfaces. Healthcare leaders need to think about how information flows between systems, how workflows change for clinicians and staff, and how data is governed across the enterprise. Without that foundation, organizations risk creating disconnected experiences that frustrate patients and care teams.

The organizations seeing the greatest success are taking a platform approach that focuses on interoperability, standardized data, and scalable governance models that can support future digital initiatives and existing consumer-facing services.

Michael Dalton, Founder and CEO at Ovatient
The biggest issue is meaningful interoperability. Are we creating new siloes across multiple platforms? And if we can see information that is shared across care teams and across a multitude of platforms- still a huge “If” – is it actionable? Can the care teams who are supporting a patient across care settings communicate with one another with a shared purpose? I still hear too many horror stories from patients who hit a dead end, are starting over yet again, or don’t feel like their providers are coordinated. I don’t see this being easily resolved.

Matt Ernst, EVP, Solutions at Tendo
Integration is where ambition meets reality in healthcare IT. You can build a beautifully intuitive consumer experience, and then watch it collapse the moment it has to talk to a 20-year-old EHR or a fragmented identity management system. The hard truth is that most enterprise clinical systems weren’t designed with consumer-facing extensibility in mind. So the challenge isn’t just technical — it’s architectural and organizational.

Michael Meucci, President and CEO at Arcadia
The industry has made significant progress on interoperability. Standards-based APIs and modern data-sharing frameworks are making it easier for patients to access and share health information across providers, payers, and digital health applications. That’s a critical foundation for direct-to-consumer healthcare because consumer-facing tools need access to the broader clinical context to deliver meaningful experiences. At the same time, Direct-to-consumer solutions generate enormous volumes of information from patient interactions, remote monitoring devices, wearables, and digital engagement tools. But volume alone doesn’t improve outcomes. The challenge now is to move from collecting more data to turning that data into meaningful action. Organizations need modern platforms that can integrate disparate data sources, process real-time information, and seamlessly incorporate insights into clinical workflows.

Sagnik Bhattacharya, CEO at Rhapsody
As direct-to-consumer healthcare expands, the challenge is shifting from access to action. Connected devices, virtual care platforms, and consumer health applications can generate valuable insights, but those insights only improve outcomes if they reach the right clinician, in the right workflow, at the right time. The technology challenge is no longer simply connecting consumers to care, it’s connecting consumer-generated data to the broader healthcare ecosystem.

Amber Gill, CEO at Receptive
The biggest challenge is that healthcare administration technology still lives in the dinosaur era while consumers expect the experience of a modern app. The hard part isn’t building new technology—it’s making dozens of legacy systems talk to each other without breaking. When those systems don’t work together, patients feel it immediately.

Dr. Scott Schell, Chief Medical Officer at Cognizant
Most direct-to-consumer platforms, while generally relatively easy to deploy, are far more difficult to integrate into how healthcare actually operates. Healthcare organizations still must manage a complex mix of EHRs, payer connectivity, scheduling systems, contact centers, revenue cycle platforms, identity services, and clinical workflows.

The challenge is not simply inter-system data exchange, but maintaining operational continuity across them. Every consumer interaction creates downstream work: documentation, authorization, routing, follow-up, billing, and care coordination. The organizations that realize the greatest value treat this integration as a workflow problem, not an interface problem. APIs move data. Operating models move work.

What great points to consider here! Huge thank you to everyone who took the time out of their day to submit a quote to us! And thank you to all of you for taking the time out of your day to read this article! We could not do this without all of your support.