Ellensburg, Wash.-based Kittitas Valley Healthcare is transitioning its facilities onto a Cerner EHR, the Ellensburg Daily Record reports.
The EHR shift will bring KVH's records into one system. The system's various facilities currently use different EHR systems; it's hospitals use Paragon, its clinics use Nextgen, its emergency department uses Empower and its home and hospice staff use Horizon Home Care.
Under the current system, physicians in different departments may not be able to exchange records with one another. Jose Diaz, a physician assistant at KVH Family Medicine, told the Ellensburg Daily Record clinicians would often have to print and scan records to departments on separate EHR systems.
"It's very inefficient communication," Mr. Diaz said. "We're supposed to be paperless, but even within the single EMR of Nextgen we have providers who are working in the periphery of the clinic who are on the same system, who have to paper print for us to access what they've done."
As the health system shifts to the Cerner EHR, officials will move legacy records to a single electronic filing cabinet outside of the Cerner system, according to the Ellensburg Daily Record. Staff will have to manually transfer data into Cerner or establish a code to automatically transfer it.
KVH plans to launch the Cerner EHR in February 2018. However, since Cerner does not have modules for home and hospice care, the department will switch to the new EHR at a later point.