Quick Wins: Consolidation Playbook to Reduce Your Clinic’s Tech Stack in 90 Days

Fix the overwhelm: reduce platforms, restore clinician time, and cut costs in 90 days

Too many clinician tools, fractured data, and silos between your EHR and rehab platforms are slowing care and burning budgets. If clinicians tell you they spend more time switching apps than treating patients, this consolidation playbook gives you a concrete 90-day plan to reduce platforms, tighten integration, and improve clinician adoption—informed by 2026 interoperability trends and marketing stack consolidation strategies.

Why consolidation matters now (2026 context)

Healthcare tech stacks in 2026 look very different than in 2019: clinicians expect API-first integrations, AI-assisted documentation, and secure remote monitoring. At the same time, payers and regulators are pushing for measurable outcomes and data portability. That means the cost of tool sprawl is not just financial—it’s clinical:

• Administrative time and clinician burnout from context-switching across multiple apps
• Data fragmentation that prevents reliable KPIs and outcome measurement
• Rising subscription costs and integration maintenance (integration debt)
• Greater privacy and security scrutiny for third-party apps

Consolidation reduces friction, lowers cost, and makes it possible to track meaningful metrics across care pathways—especially for remote rehabilitation, telehealth, and hybrid models that dominate post-2024 care delivery.

High-level approach: rapid, data-driven, clinician-centered

This 90-day plan follows three principles:

• Measure first: you can’t optimize what you can’t measure. Create an evidence-based inventory and KPIs.
• Clinician-centric change: adoption wins or loses consolidation. Engage clinicians early and often.
• Safe & incremental: reduce risk with pilot groups, rollback plans, and HIPAA-first security checks.

90-Day Timeline — Week-by-week playbook

Below is an actionable, calendarized plan. Assign a project lead (PM), an IT integration lead, a clinician champion, finance representative, and a vendor liaison for each phase.

Days 0–14: Discover & baseline

• Inventory every clinical and admin tool (EHR modules, telerehab, scheduling, billing, assessment apps, device platforms). Include subscriptions, renewal dates, and BAAs.
• Run usage analytics: monthly active users (MAU), daily active users (DAU), and time-in-app where available. If analytics are lacking, survey clinicians and run 1-week shadowing.
• Measure baseline KPIs (examples below).
• Map key workflows: intake-to-discharge for three high-volume case types (e.g., post-op orthopedics, stroke rehab, chronic pain management).
• Stakeholder kickoff: clinician focus groups, IT, finance, compliance, and a patient representative.

Deliverables (end of Day 14): tool inventory spreadsheet, workflow maps for 3 case types, baseline KPI dashboard.

Days 15–30: Score, prioritize, and design consolidation targets

Use a scoring rubric to decide what stays, what consolidates, and what goes:

• Score each tool on: cost, clinician usage, clinical impact, data redundancy, security risk, and integration capability (API/FHIR/HL7).
• Set thresholds: e.g., deprecate tools with MAU < 15% of intended users and/or cost per active user > $X.
• Identify consolidation paths: (a) move functionality into the EHR or (b) adopt a single integrated rehab platform with robust EHR APIs or (c) use an iPaaS/middleware to maintain best-of-breed while removing point-to-point integrations.
• Run vendor risk checks: BAAs, SOC 2/FedRAMP where relevant, encryption, and data residency concerns.

Deliverables (end of Day 30): prioritized consolidation roadmap with Top 5 tools to remove or consolidate, recommended integration approach, and vendor shortlists.

Days 31–60: Execute pilot consolidations and integrations

Execute in waves: pilot (one clinic or service line), scale (additional clinics), then full migration. Focus first on high-impact, low-risk consolidations.

• Negotiate contract exits and consolidation discounts. Include early-termination and transfer-of-data clauses.
• Implement integrations: enable SSO (SAML/OIDC), provision user accounts via SCIM, and connect data flows using FHIR APIs or an iPaaS. For EHR integrations, use vendor-certified connectors where possible.
• Data migration: map data fields, reconcile patient identifiers (use a master patient index), and validate sample records in pilot.
• Run the pilot for 2–3 weeks: monitor usage, clinician feedback, and error rates. Keep a rollback plan ready.
• Clinician training: micro-learning modules (5–10 minutes), live Q&A sessions, and quick-reference cheat sheets integrated into the EHR launch banner.

Deliverables (end of Day 60): pilot success report, integration runbook, signed contracts, and a clinician training completion log.

Days 61–90: Scale, optimize, and measure ROI

• Roll out to remaining clinics in waves, using the pilot team as trainers and champions.
• Enable real-time dashboards for the KPIs and create weekly scorecards for leadership and clinician reps.
• Optimize workflows based on observed bottlenecks (e.g., reduce clicks, automate routine documentation using AI templates where allowed).
• Negotiate vendor contract consolidations after showing usage and ROI to gain better pricing and support terms.
• Formalize governance: tool approval process, renewal calendar, and quarterly tech reviews to prevent future sprawl.

Deliverables (end of Day 90): consolidated tech stack, KPI improvement report vs baseline, realized or projected cost reduction, and a governance charter.

Concrete scoring rubric (plug-and-play)

Use this weighted scoring model to transparently prioritize tools. Score 1–5 for each criterion:

• Cost (weight 20%) — Annual spend per tool.
• Clinical impact (weight 25%) — How directly does it improve patient outcomes or clinician efficiency?
• Usage (weight 20%) — % of intended users actively using it weekly.
• Integration readiness (weight 15%) — API availability, FHIR support, vendor cooperation.
• Security/compliance risk (weight 10%) — BAA status, SOC2, encryption.
• Redundancy (weight 10%) — Overlap with other tools or EHR capabilities.

Calculate weighted score and set simple rules: keep tools with score > 3.5, consolidate tools scoring 2.5–3.5, decommission < 2.5 unless clinically necessary.

Key KPIs to track (and target improvements in 90 days)

Measure both operational and clinical KPIs—early wins should focus on operational efficiency, then extend to outcomes.

• Operational:
  • Number of active clinical platforms (baseline → target)
  • Monthly software spend (USD)
  • Average clinician app switches per patient encounter
  • Time spent per patient on admin tasks (minutes)
  • Clinician satisfaction / adoption NPS
• Clinical:
  • Time-to-first-treatment after referral
  • Percent of patients with complete outcome measures in the EHR
  • Adherence to prescribed remote rehab sessions

Realistic 90-day targets: reduce platform count by 25–40%, cut redundant app spend by 20–35%, and decrease clinician app switches per encounter by 30–50% for piloted workflows.

Adoption & change management—clinician-focused tactics that work

Consolidation fails without clinician buy-in. Use these proven change-management techniques inspired by marketing stack consolidation:

• Start with a clinician champion network: identify early adopters and skeptics, and use both strategically.
• Micro-training: short videos, task-based simulations, and in-EHR prompts. Clinical teams prefer 5–15 minute focused learning over long seminars.
• Measure and show time savings quickly: display time-saved metrics in weekly huddles to demonstrate value.
• Reduce login friction: implement SSO and role-based access to avoid password fatigue and multiple authentications.
• Feedback loops: in-app surveys, a dedicated Slack or Teams channel, and weekly office hours with the project team.

Integration options and technical considerations (2026 best practices)

Choose the approach aligned to your scale and governance model:

• EHR-first consolidation: Use native EHR modules (documentation templates, rehab flows) for the highest simplicity but verify clinical feature parity and vendor lock-in risk.
• API-first integrations: Use FHIR R4+ endpoints, SMART on FHIR for embedded apps, and bulk data for analytics. In 2025–26 the ecosystem matured—many vendors now provide standardized FHIR profiles for therapy outcomes and device data.
• iPaaS/middleware: For hybrid environments, an integration platform as a service reduces point-to-point mappings and centralizes transformations and logging.

Technical checklist:

• SSO (SAML/OIDC) and SCIM for provisioning
• FHIR APIs for clinical data exchange (observations, care plans, device data)
• Audit logging and SIEM integration
• Data mapping and master patient index strategy
• Rollback plan and validation scripts

Security, compliance, and privacy—non-negotiables

Consolidation increases reliance on fewer systems—so compliance must be airtight:

• Verify BAAs for all cloud vendors and confirm encryption in transit and at rest.
• Adopt a least-privilege access model and roll out multifactor authentication for all clinician accounts.
• Ensure audit trails are preserved during migrations. Keep immutable logs for investigations.
• Review data retention policies; consolidate and minimize stored PHI where possible to reduce exposure.
• Implement automated monitoring for unusual access patterns (Zero Trust principles).

Example case: outpatient rehab clinic consolidates 6 tools into 3 in 90 days

Scenario summary: A mid-sized outpatient rehab clinic used an EHR, a telerehab app, a scheduling tool, an outcomes measurement app, a home exercise platform, and a patient engagement portal.

• Discovery found the outcomes app was rarely used (MAU 12%), scheduling was duplicated between the EHR and a third-party, and five tools produced overlapping home exercise libraries.
• Action taken: migrated scheduling to EHR, embedded the home exercise platform via SMART on FHIR into the EHR, and replaced the outcomes app by enabling an outcomes module in the EHR that integrated with telerehab data via FHIR.
• Results at Day 90: platform count down from 6 to 3, subscription spend reduced 28%, clinicians reported 40% fewer app switches and a 12-minute average time savings per patient encounter. Outcome capture in the EHR rose from 55% to 88% for pilot clinicians.

Common pitfalls and how to avoid them

• No measurement baseline: spend time on Day 0–14 to capture accurate KPIs.
• Ignoring clinician workflows: involve clinicians in design and pilot, not just as recipients of training.
• Rushing integrations: prioritize data validation and a conservative cutover plan with fallbacks.
• Not planning vendor contract timing: consolidate with contract end dates to avoid early termination penalties. See best practices for auditing contracts and stack costs.

Future-proofing: what to embed now for 2027 and beyond

Build these capabilities as part of consolidation so your stack remains nimble:

• Modular architecture: prefer SMART on FHIR apps over embedded proprietary modules when you want flexibility.
• Data-first strategy: ensure clinical data is captured in the EHR canonical source so analytics and AI models work over a single reliable dataset.
• AI governance: if you deploy generative-AI or CDS features, require auditability and clinician override controls.
• Quarterly tech reviews: prevent sprawl by requiring new tool requests to pass a consolidation impact test.

"A lean, integrated tech stack gives clinicians more time with patients and leadership better visibility into outcomes."

Actionable takeaways — immediate next steps

• Start today: schedule a 90-day kickoff with your cross-functional team and pick one high-volume workflow to target for Day 0–14 discovery.
• Create the inventory and run the scoring rubric to identify quick decommissions (tools with low usage and high cost).
• Plan a pilot consolidation with clinician champions, SSO, and a single validated FHIR data flow.
• Set KPI targets: platform count reduction, % cost reduction, clinician app-switch reduction, and outcome capture improvement.

Why this works: lessons from marketing stack consolidation

Marketing teams learned to consolidate by centralizing identity, tracking outcomes, and using middleware for integrations. The same principles apply in healthcare: single patient identity, outcome-aligned KPIs, and modular integration reduce overhead without forcing every team onto a single monolith. The difference is clinical risk—so we pair speed with rigorous validation and clinician-led adoption.

Closing: your 90-day opportunity

In 90 days you can meaningfully reduce your clinic’s tech stack, improve clinician workflows, and free budget for higher-value clinical investments. This plan balances speed with safety: measure first, pilot smartly, and scale with clinician champions and strong governance.

Ready to start?

If you want a ready-to-run template, we offer an implementation pack including the inventory spreadsheet, scoring rubric, integration runbook, and clinician training micro-modules tailored for outpatient rehab clinics. Contact our team to schedule a free 30-minute readiness review—let’s turn your tool sprawl into measurable clinical impact.