Three Moments When the Forms Gap Becomes Impossible to Ignore

Forms outside the EHR can remain manageable for years.

Over time, manual processes become part of daily operations. Documents may be spread across shared drivers, local computers and printed inventories, yet established routines keep the work moving.

Then something changes.

A system transition, standardization effort or major initiative places new pressure on the workflow. Workarounds that once seemed manageable begin to create delays, uncertainty and risk.

These moments do not create the forms gap. They expose a problem that was already there.

Interlace Health customers have encountered that gap at different points in their digital transformation. Their experiences show why certain moments create an opportunity to address forms outside the EHR more systematically.

Previous article: Why Technology Alone Will Not Close the Healthcare Forms Gap

1. After EHR go-live

An EHR implementation forces a health system to examine how information moves through the organization.

Clinical workflows are mapped. Data is converted. Interfaces are tested. Teams determine what the new system will support before go-live.

Forms are often treated as a smaller part of that work.

Some documents are rebuilt in the EHR. Others remain outside it because they support local workflows, cannot be accommodated by available templates, or were not included in the scope of the original EHR go-live and have not yet been transitioned.

Those temporary decisions can create a lasting forms gap.

City of Hope encountered this reality after moving to its EHR. Five years later, the organization still had forms the system could not fully accommodate. Interlace Health helped connect those forms with the surrounding workflow, creating an experience staff described as feeling like one system.

The lesson is not that the EHR implementation failed. It is that go-live did not reach every form and workflow the organization still depended on.

A post-go-live review can identify what remains outside the EHR, which documents require manual handling and where old workarounds were recreated around the new system.

Related article: EHR Forms Management vs. Smart Forms, PDFs and eSign Tools

2. During multi-hospital standardization

A forms process that functions within one hospital becomes more difficult to sustain across an entire system.

Each facility may have its own library, departmental variations and approval practices. Forms with similar purposes may use different languages, follow different naming conventions or live in separate repositories.

Medical City Healthcare faced this challenge across a division of hospitals.

After an initial pilot, the organization expanded Interlace Health across additional facilities. Individual hospitals reported annual forms savings of $60,000 to $100,000, while the cost of an admissions packet dropped from $2.40 to $0.45.

The results are financial, but the larger lesson is operational. Standardization requires more than moving documents into one location.

Health systems must determine which variations are necessary, which forms can be consolidated and how updates will reach every facility. They also need clear ownership and a shared process for approvals and revisions.

Without that structure, growth can multiply duplicate forms and increase the effort required for every future change.

Related article: How Many Forms Does Your Health System Have Outside the EHR?

3. When a major initiative creates an opening

Sometimes the clearest opportunity to address forms outside the EHR comes with a new beginning.

When Halton Healthcare opened a new hospital, it used the initiative to establish a single forms library across three hospitals and eliminate its print shop.

Instead of carrying separate libraries and print-dependent processes into the new environment, Halton worked with Interlace Health to establish a more centralized approach.

A similar opportunity may appear when a health system opens a facility, adds a service line, changes leadership or begins a broader digital transformation initiative.

These moments create organizational attention and a defined timeline. They bring stakeholders together around a shared outcome and make it easier to address processes that were difficult to prioritize on their own.

The key is to include forms early enough. Waiting until launch approaches can leave teams rushing to convert documents without reviewing ownership, eliminating duplicates or planning how completed forms will move through the workflow.

Don’t wait for a trigger moment

Health systems do not need to wait for an EHR transition, standardization effort or new facility to address forms outside the EHR.

These moments simply make the cost and complexity more visible.

Throughout this series, we have explored how to inventory forms, why the gap persists, how technology options compare and why a sustainable strategy must combine technology, services and governance.

The forms gap is easier to address before the organization is working against an implementation or expansion timeline. A proactive approach gives teams time to rationalize the library, clarify ownership and connect forms to the workflows they support.

Your EHR transformed the patient record. The next step is addressing the forms and workflows that transformation did not fully reach.

Explore the complete framework for closing the forms gap.

Download Interlace Health’s whitepaper, Beyond the EHR: A Guide to Digitizing the Forms and Workflows It Doesn’t Support, to understand why forms outside the EHR persist and how Interlace Forms Management can help bring them into a connected, governed environment.