"Epic is our EHR that we currently use and it is going to be the EHR of the future from our technology platform," David Singer, CIO of New Orleans-based LCMC Health, told Becker's.
Mr. Singer, who was appointed CIO of the health system Aug. 11, is focusing on Epic optimization and scaling its IT systems as the organization is in "hyper-growth" after its $150 million purchase of three hospitals from Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA Healthcare.
"We're continuously always upgrading Epic," he said. "We'll be continuously upgrading that platform and making sure we're able to provide the latest and greatest features and functionalities as well as any new modules that we may not be taking advantage of today."
As Mr. Singer looks for ways to scale what the health system's size is today and what its size will be in the future, he's turning to workflow optimization for LCMC Health's eight facilities.
"We're actively implementing additional hospitals that we've acquired from HCA, so we're really making sure that our workflows encompass their needs and our existing hospital needs," he said. "We really want to make the user experience as streamlined and as painless as it can be going forward."
One way LCMC Health's CIO is doing this is by looking at "app rationalization" — combining applications that do the same thing.
"We have a variety of different applications that do the same things," he said. "Going forward, we're looking at those different applications and are seeing which ones plug into our EHR, and that will determine which is going to be the standard."
According to Mr. Singer, consolidating and streamlining LCMC Health's processes will create fewer resource constraints on IT when it comes to managing additional interfaces that the health system may not need.