3 Healthcare Orgs Look to EHR Implementations for Interoperability

Mississippi Practice Implements Cloud-based eCW EHR to Streamline Operations           

Eudora Medical Center, LLC, a Mississippi family medicine practice, has transitioned to the eClinicalWorks Cloud EHR to support data-driven care decisions.

"We selected the eClinicalWorks Cloud EHR to leverage its search capabilities at the point of care, which will help us gain deep clinical insights and provide better value-based care," Amy Perkins, a nurse practitioner at Eudora Medical Center, said in a press release.  

"With this cloud technology, we will be able to access key data securely—even during unexpected challenges—streamline operations and reduce costs associated with management of traditional hosting models,” she added.

Cloud-based EHR implementations can help practices deploy applications faster and collate and compute patient data from all sources.

Healthcare System Taps MEDITECH EHR for Interoperability

St. Bernards Healthcare recently went live with a MEDITECH Expanse EHR implementation across its four-hospital network.

The independent, nonprofit healthcare system serves 23 counties in Northeast Arkansas and Southeast Missouri. 

St. Bernards’ new EHR spans all care settings, including home health and hospice. The health system also implemented Expanse Ambulatory at ten ambulatory locations and will complete implementations at the remaining locations over the next year.

"Whether in the hospital, surgical department, or ambulatory setting, our physicians now have an improved overall patient picture," Kasey Holder, MD, St. Bernards' VP of Medical Affairs, noted in a public statement.

The IT staff at St. Bernards emphasized the benefit of a unified EHR implementation which replaces MEDITECH's legacy acute system, three ambulatory systems, and a patient portal.

"Instead of making changes and pulling data from multiple systems to meet regulatory requirements, we now can implement changes in one EHR with data readily available for tracking and trending in one solution," said Josh Melton, St. Bernards' chief technology officer.

State Budget Proposes $105 for Medical College of Georgia EHR

The Georgia state budget has proposed $105 million for a new EHR system at The Medical College of Georgia (MCG), according to reporting from The Augusta Chronicle.

In testimony before the joint appropriations committee, Sonny Perdue, chancellor of the University System of Georgia, outlined the need for the new system.

"We do medical education extremely well," Perdue said. "We don't operate hospitals very well, so we are looking for a partnership where our physicians in Georgia can experience a modern hospital environment that would help all across the state."

Augusta University Health System is looking to purchase an Epic EHR that would unite all hospitals and clinics associated with the university.

"We depend on these electronic medical records for better healthcare, better coordination, better communication, and in a hospital sense, a better revenue cycle," Perdue told legislators.

Brooks A. Keel, Augusta University president, told the news outlet that if the final state budget approves the purchase, he estimates system rollout will take 12 to 18 months.

The EHR implementation would improve patient experience, including a more efficient portal for seeing lab results and smoother transfers between other hospitals in Georgia on the Epic system, Keel said.