Albany Med Taps Epic EHR Implementation to Streamline Clinical Workflows
Staff members have informed key build decisions for the Epic EHR implementation to optimize clinical workflows and support community health needs.
Albany Med Health System is tapping an Epic EHR implementation to streamline clinical workflows and improve patient care.
The systemwide implementation will replace many current outpatient and inpatient EHR platforms, including MEDENT, MEDITECH, Allscripts, Soarian, and Cerner.
The build phase for the EHR system began at the beginning of November. During this phase, clinical and operational staff met in workgroups and advisory councils to start making configuration decisions.
Albany Med officials said they will continue to rely on staff to make key build decisions to ensure the system supports community healthcare needs.
Epic will go live in 2024 in two waves—first at Albany Medical Center in March, followed by Columbia Memorial Health, Glens Falls Hospital, and Saratoga Hospital in September.
The EHR implementation is part of Albany Med’s Care One initiative, which began in late 2021.
“At its core, Care One is about creating a solid, secure, efficient foundation for the Albany Med Health System—one that will strengthen our ability to provide care, to educate, and to forge new paths forward as a single organization,” Dennis P. McKenna, MD ’92, president and CEO of Albany Med Health System said in a press release.
“This project is an incredible collaborative effort driven by our own workforce to better support the work that we do and people we serve,” McKenna added.
The Care One initiative also includes an integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP) project to integrate business processes such as billing and invoice processes, grant reporting, contract naming conventions, and supply ordering.
The implementation will include two Workday applications: one for finance operations (FINS) and one for supply chain operations (SCM).
The ERP team is currently wrapping up the architect and configuration phase of the project with unit testing to resolve any issues with data conversion or individual business processes. At the beginning of 2023, the ERP team will begin end-to-end testing and preparations for go-live in July.
