Part 1 of a series exploring providers' decisions to change EHR vendors.
An increasing number of hospitals and health systems are in the market for a replacement EHR system. Almost 50 percent of hospitals with 200 or more beds will purchase a new electronic medical record system by 2016, according to a KLAS report. And about 40 percent of providers shopping for a new EHR during the first quarter of 2014 were seeking a replacement for their system, according to a survey from EHR reviewer Software Advice.
Troy Sybert, MD, was originally recruited for the executive team at Kingsport, Tenn.-based Wellmont Health System to deploy McKesson Horizon, along with supporting three other outpatient EHRs. However, plans changed when McKesson announced in December 2012 the company would shift focus from the Horizon to Paragon platform.
"We read between the lines and realized by dropping focus on research and development for the Horizon platform, at some point we expected they'd be sunsetting support for Horizon," says Dr. Sybert.
The CIO and Dr. Sybert, then the system's CMIO and chief quality officer[1], took the opportunity to lead the rest of the executive team in reevaluating the organizations' EHR needs. Then a seven-hospital system with an extensive outpatient network, Wellmont was looking for an EHR system that would work across care settings while preparing Wellmont for meaningful use stage 2 and beyond. "We needed a vendor that was going to be able to keep up, and take the place of all four of our EHRs," says Dr. Sybert.
With the help of an outside consultant, Wellmont researched potential vendors and eventually settled on Epic.
"The piece that was key for us was the connectivity between inpatient and outpatient settings”, says Dr. Sybert. "With Epic, you're on a single database, which is far superior to having multiple databases trying to talk to each other... just having that connectivity in this era of population health, that's the golden chalice."
Wellmont finished its Epic implementation a few months ago and is now live on the system in both its inpatient and outpatient facilities. Dr. Sybert is confident the decision to switch to Epic was the right one. "I'd never look back," he says.
Epic, considered the EHR market leader, is widely seen as both very expensive and lacking interoperability with other systems. However, Dr. Sybert says the number of third-party contracts the health system was able to terminate following the implementation of Epic's enterprise-wide system offset much of the software costs. He also says Epic's reputation for being a closed platform is undeserved. "It's absolutely not true," he says, "and anyone who doesn't believe that can come here and see for himself or herself."
However, he does acknowledge the Epic system might not be the right choice for every provider. Epic requires an investment, he says, both in terms of upfront costs and in time needed to optimize the system to reach peak performance. "If you're just looking for a quick, off-the-shelf solution, Epic might not be it," he says. "Though, Grandma was right when she told me you get what you pay for. Hospitals and clinics have got to invest the right time and money in robust design that is safe for patients."
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[1] As of Sept. 1, Dr. Sybert is vice president and CMO of Cappella Healthcare in Franklin, Tenn.