Shift to single platform puts hospitals, physician practices on the same records system.
Mohawk Valley Health System, a two-campus delivery system serving the Utica, N.Y., region, went live enterprisewide on the Epic electronic health record on June 29, which for the first time puts the two hospitals and physician practices on the same platform.
The organization previously used five different EHRs in its facilities, says Darlene Stromstad, president and CEO.
“We are now able, in real-time, to monitor patient activity by unit and by patient, decreasing the opportunity for delays in patient care,” she says. “Epic gives us the ability to share patient information throughout the health system and with our peers to better coordinate patients’ care. That results in less testing because we can share up-to-date results. And for those patients who wish to sign up on our patient portal, it provides them direct access to their own health record. Moving to Epic is a significant step toward transforming healthcare in our region.”
“War room” for Epic implementation at Mohawk Valley Health System.
Implementing Epic included 126,540 training hours over the past year, and more than 90 million records were transferred to Epic from legacy EHRs. Staff also rescheduled 120,000 appointments from the old system to Epic during the Father’s Day weekend.
John Lynch, vice president and chief information officer, and Paul Davidson, MD, and chief medical information officer are leading the implementation.
MVHS providers now have the ability to coordinate care more efficiently with clinicians outside of the health system, helping to close care gaps and reduce duplication, Lynch explains. “Providers are now able to see ‘real-time’ data and have a comprehensive view of their patients’ medical records.”
Using Epic, the organization will have substantial data sharing opportunities as five other delivery systems in the region are part of the Epic community.
Patients can securely communicate with providers, view their heath history and past visit information, schedule appointments, request prescription refills and pay their bills. They also can access the portal via the MyChart mobile application that is available in app stores.
The past year has brought new professional relationships across the enterprise, Stromstad says. “Knowing your coworkers results in better trust and that strengths our ability to work together to deliver great patient care.”
Here are other new contracts and go-lives reported during the past week.
Hackensack Meridian Health will implement the EdgeNet optical fiber network to take the majority of Hackensack data traffic off the commodity Internet and put the traffic on Internet 2, a not-for-profit U.S computer networking consortium led by members from the research and education communities, industry and government. EdgeNet is supported by NJEdge, New Jersey’s non-profit research and education network and technology solutions center.
Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital in New Hampshire, part of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health, has signed a new revenue cycle management contract with Conifer Health Solutions. Bringing Alice Peck Day on board expands the number of facilities using the revenue cycle services within the Hitchcock Health delivery system. Alice Peck Day is the second system member to adopt the Conifer software, following Cheshire Medical Center in late 2017.
Franklin County Memorial Hospital, a 25-bed critical access facility in Meadville, Miss.; and Rolling Plains Memorial Hospital and clinic in Sweetwater, Texas; have purchased the chronic care management software and services of TruBridge. The service helps clients rollout a care management program, enroll patients in the program and staff care coordinators to actively engage with patients through two-way messaging via a mobile app.
Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System, a delivery network in North and South Carolina, has selected pharmacy software from Omnicell to support pharmacy services and medication management at flagship hospital Spartanburg Medical Center and the newly acquired Mary Black campuses. Spartanburg wants to enhance medication management and improve pharmacy performance through Omnicell’s automation and cloud-based predictive analytics software. The organization also is planning to launch a centralized distribution center as the main hub for pharmacy supply chain management that also will include the vendor’s robotic system to automate critical workflows to maximize inventory control, improve efficiency and increase medication safety.
Joseph Goedert
Goedert is senior editor of Health Data Management, a SourceMedia publication.