The Oneida Daily Dispatch (Oneida, NY)
New system expected to improve MVHS care
MVHS successfully launched a new system-wide system to improve patient safety and treatment quality.
On Saturday, Mohawk Valley Health System successfully launched a new system-wide electronic health record called Epic, putting the two hospitals and physician practices on the same platform for the first time.
“This is truly an ‘Epic’ moment for our health system,” said Darlene Stromstad, FACHE, MVHS president and CEO. Previously, MVHS used five different systems in its facilities.
“There are many benefits of Epic, most notably improved pa
tient safety and quality and improved efficiency of care,” Stromstad said. “We are now able, in real-time, to monitor patient activity by unit and by patient, decreasing the opportunity for delays in patient care. It gives us the ability to share real-time patient information throughout the health system and with our peers to better coordinate our patients’ care. That results in less testing because we can share up-to- date results. And, for those patients who wish to sign up with 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.”
Epic is the most widelyused, comprehensive health record system MVHS, officials said, and used by the majority of U.S. More than 60 percent of New Yorkers currently have a record in Epic. MVHS peers, including St. Joseph’s Hospital and UpstateMedical Center in Syracuse, Bassett Healthcare Network in Cooperstown and Rochester Regional Health and University of Rochester Medical Center in Rochester are also part of the Epic community.
All organizations using Epic can interoperate, which means they can easily exchange patient data for improved patient care.
“I’ll state the obvious: St. Elizabeth Medical Center and Faxton St. Luke’s Healthcare have been operating on different medical record platforms,” said Stromstad. “We couldn’t share real-time patient records even though patients may be seen on both campuses. The advantages are immediate.”
John Lynch, MVHS vice president and chief information officer, and Dr. Paul Davidson, chief medical information officer, lead the effort for the Epic implementation.
“MVHS providers now have the ability to coordinate care more efficiently with clinicians outside of the health system, which will help close care gaps and reduce duplication,” said Lynch. “Providers and clinicians are now able to see ‘real-time’ data and have a comprehensive view of their patients’ medical records.”
In addition to improving care coordination for providers, patients will also have increased visibility and access for managing their health information using Epic’s online portal, MyChart. Patients are able to easily and securely communicate with their providers, view their health history and past visit information, schedule appointments, request prescription refills, pay their bills and more.
“MyChart is an important tool for patients, giving them control over their health information and becoming an engaged member of their care team,” said Lynch.
Patients can also access the portal via the MyChart mobile application, available in the app stores.
The Epic implementation process has included approximately 126,540 training hours over the past year for a number of physicians, nurses, pharmacists, support and financial teams. This is a significant investment for MVHS and one that will play an important role in the coordination of patient care – in both the inpatient and the outpatient settings.
Stromstad said the many teams of staff that have been working tirelessly together for the past year have built professional relationships that strengthen MVHS. “Knowing your coworkers results in better trust, and that strengthens our ability to work together to deliver great patient care,” she said.
“Changing the way we work every day can be a challenge to providers, particularly physicians who are not used to this technology,” said Davidson. “However, we’ve been very pleased with how they’ve approached the training and came in with the attitude that this is the future, and they’ll make it work. It will take a few months, but it will become second-hand for everyone.” “We implemented this major change in a little over a year,” said Stromstad. “More than 90 million records were successfully transferred to Epic from the legacy medical record systems. Staff also manually rescheduled 120,000 appointments from the old systems to Epic over the Father’s Day weekend. This is truly a remarkable feat – it takes most organizations more than two years. This is a massive undertaking and I’m very proud and grateful to the MVHS team for this accomplishment.”
For Lynch, this is his third Epic go-live. “Experience teaches us many things, including the need to have as much support as needed the first few weeks,” Lynch said. “We have augmented our staff with internal “Superusers” who are deployed across all of our locations to provide assistance. We also brought in teams of people from Epic to help train and support.”
The heart of the operation is the Command Center where approximately 100 people field phone calls and provide technical support to users and address issues in real-time.
To learn more about Epic and the MVHS MyChart tool, visit mvhealthsystem. org/Epic