In recent weeks, two hospitals—Memorial Hospital in New Hampshire and Beatrice Community Hospital and Health Center in Nebraska—have newly adopted Epic Systems Corporation’s EHR implementations. The decision to move over to Epic’s EHR system was largely driven in both cases by the need to improve the sharing of critical health data with other local health care organizations as well as a desire to bolster informed clinical decision-making capabilities.
At Memorial, their new Epic EHR system has replaced the hospital’s former combination of three health care IT systems from three different EHR vendors. The former combination of systems was initially designed to meet the needs of different providers in different care settings. Memorial was spurred to make the move to Epic’s EHR system as part of its push to more fully integrate with MaineHealth, an integrated health care system headquartered in Portland, Maine.
Patients will also see an improvement in information clarity following Memorial’s switch to Epic’s EHR system. Epic’s patient portal, MyChart, will give patients quick access to test results and other health information as well as providing them with an easy and centralized place to make appointments, request prescription refills and pay bills.
In Nebraska, Beatrice was prompted to adopt a single, integrated EHR system from Epic to ensure that the entire set of health records maintained by the hospital’s network were contained on one platform. By moving to Epic One Chart, Beatrice followed the lead of its hospital-owned clinics, who have been utilizing Epic’s systems since October 2016. According to Rick Haraldson, Beatrice’s chief executive officer, the hospital expects to improve care delivery to patients, streamline the exchange of patient health information between providers, cut down on gaps in care and reduce duplicative testing. Patients at Beatrice will also be able to take advantage of Epic’s MyChart portal.
According to Epic, approximately 64 percent of patient hospital medical records in the United States were held on Epic’s software by 2015. Memorial and Beatrice join a long roster of major hospitals across the country that utilize Epic’s systems, including Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, Johns Hopkins Hospital, the Cleveland Clinic and several campuses of the Mayo Clinic.
