As hospitals and health systems across the U.S. grapple with workflow adjustments and patient surges in response to COVID-19, their EHRs have taken on a key role in helping manage care.
Allscripts, Cerner, Epic and Meditech are four of the top vendors that hospitals use to participate in the Medicare EHR Incentive Program, according to ONC data. Here's how the four EHR vendors are working with hospitals to help streamline care during the pandemic.
Epic has helped more than 200 hospital and health system clients with telehealth setup, expansion and training. At NYU Langone, Epic helped train clinicians and assisted with increasing providers on its virtual care platform from 20 to 1,300 in a matter of days.
Allscripts released a telehealth implementation plan to help its healthcare clients expedite virtual care services at their respective organizations through its EHR patient engagement platform. During March, the EHR vendor provided telehealth services to more than 100 healthcare clients.
Cerner teamed up with telehealth provider Amwell to give hospital and health system clients access to Amwell's providers. Cerner is also offering a 24/7 nurse care hotline to help triage patient injuries and offer guidance on appropriate care.
Meditech issued EHR guidance documents to help hospital and health system clients communicate with patients and consumers during the pandemic. Meditech is also offering free customer deployment of its scheduled virtual visits capability for six months.