An Epic Success: Connecting Our System as One

To engage our UMass Memorial Health caregivers on?the?journey to become an integrated health care system, we need to keep?them informed of our progress. This piece, highlighting our work to implement Epic across our system, was recently shared with all our caregivers.?

An Epic Success: Connecting Our System as One

UMass Memorial Health is steadily progressing toward becoming an integrated health care system to ensure the best experience for our patients and caregivers. One way our system is coming together is bringing Epic to all our locations. The latest to come online is UMass Memorial Health - Harrington . Since going live last October, we’ve seen impressive results.

Robin Sodano , Senior Vice President for Information Services and Chief Information Officer, has overseen Harrington's Epic journey. She describes Epic as "the single place where a provider can go to get information about a patient's care. It's a one-stop shop."

Previously, Harrington had two electronic medical record (EMR) systems. One was for ambulatory care, the other for inpatient care. The problem? The two EMRs didn't speak with each other, which could make it hard for caregivers to find patient information.

With Epic, all information about a patient sits in one place. That includes information from visits to any location within UMass Memorial Health. Plus, Epic brings in patient records from other health care organizations that use the system.

Most community hospitals could never afford Epic. But as part of UMass Memorial Health, Harrington is now able to leverage this powerful software following a highly effective implementation. In fact, in terms of rollouts, Epic rated the Harrington execution as 5/5, while the average is 3.8/5.

"We are very proud of our caregivers and appreciative of the support from the system’s Information Services team who were all tremendous in making this implementation so successful," said Ed Moore, President of Harrington.

Key performance metrics for Harrington as of March include:

• Computerized provider order entry (95%): Allows doctors to place medication orders directly into the system. The result: reduced risk of error associated with having another caregiver transcribe the order.
• Discharge medication reconciliation (98%): Ensures any medications being prescribed upon discharge don't conflict with those the patient is taking at home and that patients resume taking their home medications prior to discharge.

In addition to caregivers having easier access to patient records, patients can use myChart, the patient portal system that is built into Epic. It's simpler to navigate for patients and offers more information about their care compared to Harrington’s prior portal which was challenging to use and did not include inpatient data.

"The Epic implementation across our system is a game changer for patients, caregivers and our revenue cycle," said Eric Alper , MD, SVP, Chief Quality Officer and Chief Clinical Informatics Officer. "With Epic in place, better information, tools and workflows are available. As a result, our patients receive higher-quality and safer care, and our caregivers are more efficient."

The Epic implementation at Harrington was also a great opportunity to bring caregivers from across the enterprise together to share how they use Epic. This sharing was essential to help Harrington caregivers with their adoption of Epic.

"I am immensely proud of our Epic accomplishments and the benefits we’re bringing to patients and caregivers across our system," said Eric Dickson, MD , President and CEO of UMass Memorial Health. "Our team has been recognized nationally with Epic Gold Stars Level 10 for exemplary performance and I’m excited to take this success to even greater heights."

Next up in the Epic rollout? There is an evaluation underway to develop plans to bring Epic to UMass Memorial Health – Community Healthlink Inc .