University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington filed a proposed amendment Aug. 1 to add two more hospitals to its system-wide, $151.7 million Epic EHR implementation project, Vermont Business Magazine reports.
Green Mountain Care Board, Vermont's state-appointed healthcare regulation organization, initially approved the health system's EHR project in 2018. The project includes UVMC, Central Vermont Medical Center in Berlin, Porter Medical Center in Middlebury, Vt., and Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital in Plattsburgh, N.Y., according to the report.
The recent certificate of need filed would include Alice Hyde Medical Center in Malone, N.Y., and Elizabethtown (N.Y.) Community Hospital in the EHR rollout. All the hospitals participating in the project are members of the University of Vermont Medical Health Network.
If the CON extension is approved, the capital cost of the Epic implementation will increase by $15.8 million and the net operating expenditures would add $4.2 million, bringing the total cost of the project to $171.7 million, the publication reports.
"Having their medical records in this unified system will lead to more timely and coordinated care for the more than 45,000 patients from the Malone and Elizabethtown communities who come to the UVM Medical Center each year," John Brumsted, MD, UVM Health Network president and CEO, told Vermont Business Magazine.
The new EHR system, which is expected to complete by 2021, will also unify UVMC patients' information on billing, insurance, scheduling and registration across the health network.