7. Interactive Voice Response (IVR). IVR has been around for a while, said Shah, and allows computer systems such as EHRs to interact with users through phones and other voice systems, such as Skype, through keypads or basic voice commands. "Next-generation EHRs should use IVRs to help improve collaboration with patients and other physicians, since they won't always be at a computer," he said. 

8. Voice recognition. "Voice recognition systems, like Apple's Siri, may seem like they're new, but they've actually been around for decades," said Shah. "Integration with voice commands and speech recognition to be able to perform data collection and other tasks in EHRs should be basic functions." But, he continued, most of today's EHRs don't know how to consume voice. "With modern solutions … voice-recognition based integration is actually pretty easy." 

[See also: Adventist to roll out EHRs at 130 clinics.]

9. Natural language understanding. Since most data in EHRs will still be human-entered and manually collected, unstructured text data, next-generation EHRs, "must integrate with natural language-understanding systems that can take human spoken [word] or typed text and automatically convert it to structured data to whatever extent possible," said Shah. 

10. Customizable import and export of data. Although this may seem like a basic requirement, said Shah, many current EHRs don't allow the easy import or export of data. "Future EHRs must allow customizable importing and exporting of simple lists, like patient census, population health, and other data lists in common formats, like Excel, CSV and XML." If you're looking at an EHR that doesn't support customizable import or export, he said, "don't buy it." 

11. HL7 info button. Because online health sources that provide up-to-date information to patients and doctors are widely available, it's important for future EHRs to connect the "patient context and details available in the EHR to public knowledge resources," said Shah. "The HL7 info button is a proposed standard for this capability, and in MU Stage 2, it's a recommended requirement for certified systems." 

12. HL7 messages and data types. "HL7 is widely used across many EHRs, but its depth of capabilities and usage across its vast message sets is not always thoroughly implemented," said Shah. "MU Stage 2 has standardized on HL7 2.5.1, and next-generation EHRs need to use it across their ecosystems." 

Follow Michelle McNickle on Twitter, @Michelle_writes