Achieving clinical and operational efficiencies: A leading health system's Epic EHR implementation plan
Discover how Baker Tilly helped a health system migrate from multiple Electronic Health Record systems to Epic, executing an EHR implementation plan that streamlined operations and enhanced patient care.
Client background
A leading health system with over 10 hospitals in partnership with a prominent Northeast university. As one of the largest academic healthcare systems in the Northeast, they provide quality and compassionate clinical care to more than five million patients each year, and world-class medical education for the physicians of tomorrow.
The business challenge
The health system needed to transition its network from multiple legacy electronic health record (EHR) systems, including Oracle Health/Cerner, Altera/Allscripts and MEDITECH, to a unified Epic platform. The key challenge was managing the complexity of multiple sites, systems and legacy data while maintaining operational continuity. With the goals of streamlining patient care, improving operational efficiency and enabling more effective data integration, Baker Tilly was engaged to provide full life cycle support for an enterprise wide Epic implementation over a five year timeline.
Strategy and solution
Baker Tilly supported the client through a comprehensive, multi-year Epic EHR implementation plan, providing strategic project management and expert consulting. Our approach included:
- Deploying over 35 Epic consultants to support the phased implementation with application design, build, test and validation of multiple applications (EpicCare Ambulatory, MyChart, Inpatient, Orders, OpTime, Anesthesia, Radiant, Cupid, Willow, Beacon, Beaker AP and CP, Resolute HB, PB and SBO, Charge Description Master, HIM, Caboodle, Clarity, Cogito and Reporting Workbench).
- Deploying 40+ legacy system consultants to maintain and support the existing clinical and revenue cycle systems (Oracle Health, Altera, MEDITECH, GE, Dentrix and PICIS) and ensure provider and staff satisfaction, while enabling the client’s full time staff to transition to the Epic team.
- Utilizing a phased go-live approach to minimize disruption, enable thorough testing and training, and facilitate better organizational change management and risk mitigation compared to a big bang approach.
- Leading and supporting the data conversion from multiple legacy systems to Epic to ensure continued provider access to complete patient records.
- Implementing and managing other critical systems such as Vocera and Capsule Technologies.
- Completing a rebuild of MEDITECH for a children's rehab hospital, allowing better sharing of patient data with Epic.
The Epic implementation resulted in a successful EHR migration across the entire health system, positively impacting over 40,000 employees, and the sunsetting of costly, redundant legacy systems. The project streamlined data integration and enhanced patient care delivery across all facilities, while consolidating systems significantly improved communication and operational efficiency throughout the organization.