Community Hospital Taps Epic Systems EHR to Improve Patient Care

Pennsylvania-based Evangelical Community Hospital has decided to move forward with an Epic Systems EHR implementation as a part of the community hospital’s effort to modernize the patient intake process and improve patient care.

The project, set to go live by December 4, 2022, intends to streamline the patient intake process with the overarching goal of improving timely care access.

Aside from these goals, the community hospital also said it picked Epic Systems to support quality improvement and patient experience.

“The platform takes into consideration all of the facets related to patient care and places them into one system that makes seeing all information in one place possible,” Dale Moyer, vice president of Information Systems at Evangelical, said in a press release.

“For our clinical staff, this means no longer logging out of one system into another to get all the information they need about the patient,” said Moyer. “For our patients, it means better access to their own information and smoother sharing of vital medical data and test/imaging results with providers outside of the Evangelical system for seamless care experiences.”

In a public statement, Evangelical Community Hospital assured that patient care standards would continue to be the hospital’s priority during go-live.

“We owe it to our patients as a community hospital to be forward thinking about what the needs are now, but also about what they will be in the future,” said Kendra Aucker, president and CEO of Evangelical.

The EHR implementation will also give patients access to Epic’s patient portal, MyChart. Patients can use the patient portal to view their medical records, see lab results, schedule appointments, talk to their care team, and request prescription refills, among other functions.

“Our teams are ready for this challenge—Epic is the key to unlocking collaboration and care coordination for patients and care providers,” said Moyer. “This is something we’ve been working on for over two years, and the energy our staff have committed to making it possible is commendable. They know there will be a time of adaptation and learning of the new system but can see the real value in the benefits for patients, care team members, and clinicians.”

Over the years, Epic has been the biggest player in the EHR market. According to the 2021 KLAS market share report, Epic holds 33 percent of the hospital market for EHR.

As of last year, Epic Systems had been newly implemented in 74 hospitals, totaling to over 80,000 beds. The organization remained the top choice for large healthcare organizations, gaining over 32 members.

With such significant access to millions of patient data records, the EHR vendor has become very appealing to cloud vendors like Google Cloud.

Recently, Epic Systems and Google Cloud inked an infrastructure agreement allowing organizations utilizing Epic Systems to run their EHR workloads on Google Cloud.

"Our mission to innovate requires accessible, cutting edge technology," Robert C. Garrett, FACHE, CEO and chief executive officer for Hackensack Meridian Health, said in a press release. “With our Epic EHR on Google Cloud, we'll be able to innovate faster and benefit from a more efficient and secure cloud environment."