Exciting things are happening at Hocking Valley Community Hospital and the Hocking Valley Medical Group. Both organizations recently converted to a new electronic health record (EHR) platform known as Epic.
“HVCH started this process about 18 months ago when we took the opportunity to evaluate our current platform to see if it would meet our needs into the future,” Stacey Gabriel, Chief Nursing Officer, said. “We discovered that the platform we were using did not have the functionality we desired. Knowing that we only wanted the best for our patients and employees, we started on a journey of evaluating several different platforms that were available to us, and selected the one most fitting.”
Through HVCH’s affiliation with The Ohio State Wexner Medical Center, the hospital had the opportunity to leverage for Epic, which is usually unattainable for smaller health organizations
. The conversion to Epic provided through OSUWMC includes all Epic applications and the third-party applications that OSUWMC has obtained. On March 9, 2017, HVCH held an Epic kick-off meeting and March 6, 2018, was selected as the program go-live date. Both the hospital and the medical group transitioned over to the new platform at that time.
Epic is a top-rated EHR and has been rated #1 for customer satisfaction. About 51% of the population of the United States has an Epic account, and more than 80% of the retail market – including Walgreens and CVS – use Epic. It also is the only EHR that shares information freely between all other EHR systems with no additional fees. The basic cost is $3 million.
“This project is aligned with our mission to provide extraordinary care close to home, now and into the future, and our vision of providing our community with an unparalleled patient experience through world class service that is both compassionate and professional,” Julie Stuck, HVCH President and CEO, said.
“HVCH and the Hocking Valley Medical Group are continuously focused on the health and well-being for those in our community, and we are doing everything we can to ensure that providers across the continuum have access to the patient’s information.”
What is an electronic medical record?
It is a digital equivalent of your paper medical records. Each time you visit your medical provider or hospital, you create a piece of information about your health and visit that is physically added to your medical chart. By implementing an EMR, your patient data can be tracked by multiple healthcare providers all over the world.
If you live in Hocking County and are a patient of Hocking Valley Community Hospital or Hocking Valley Medical Group, when you travel out of state your record will now go with you and be available should you have an unexpected medical emergency. If you’re in an auto accident and become unconscious, this can be critical and even life saving if your provider needs to know your allergies, what medications you currently take and what prior health issues you may have.
Patient Benefits:
- A patient’s total health information, allergies, lab work, medications, and X-rays are together in one place, so care is coordinated.
- Follow-up information, instructions or reminders for patients can be easily obtained or sent electronically.
- When a new medication is prescribed, the EHR automatically checks and alerts the clinician to potential conflicts with previous treatments or allergies.
- Health history, medications, and allergies do not have to be repeated with each new medical caregiver.
- More patient and family interaction in care with better accessibility to care instructions, results and communication with care providers.
- Less time between diagnostic result availability and clinical decision/intervention/treatment.
- Reduction in duplicate testing.