Practice Management System as a Web Service

Image via WikipediaIn the current healthcare software market, three systems are critical and vital part of any health organization from small clinics to big hospitals. The PHR(Personal Health Record), Electronic Medical Record(EMR) and Practice Management System(PMS). In most cases, PHR and EMR are packaged together as a single software system. And, PMS is sold as separate software system. There are blurry lines between PMS and EMR features, as the features available are interchangeable and overlapping at times.

But, the two systems serve two totally different purposes.

PMS for administration such as scheduling, reports, accounting, claims processing, etc. While, EMR functionality revolves around the medical practice and PHR. There are good EMRs in the market and PMSs in the market. But, all of them are built as software and not as service to my knowledge.

Wouldn't it be a good idea to have PMS available as a service for EMR systems to integrate, thereby let the PMS do the job of scheduling, accounting etc in the background and just provide the results to the EMR. As electronic health records are gaining importance after decades of neglect, more and more EMRs are going to be built in the future. And, these systems are going to require PMS functionality, which can be either developed from scratch or integrate an existing PMS available as service. But, none of the existing PMS seem to offer the functionality as service. The existing PMS are available as only web apps.

My question: Are there PMS systems available as a web service that can be integrated into a newly developed EMR?

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