Transcription:

Bill Klaproth (Host): So, where are we at the move to Epic, the new electronic health record system? Let’s find out with Dr. Muhammad Jokhadar, Chief Medical Informatics Officer and Rick Casteel, Vice President and IT Site Executive. This is the Hero Podcast from UM Upper Chesapeake Health. I’m Bill Klaproth. Dr. Jokhadar, let’s start with you. Can you tell us why are we moving to Epic?

Muhammed Jokhadar, MD (Guest): So, let me tell you first about Epic portfolio which is a robust electronic health record system used by all hospitals within our University of Maryland Medical System as part of our vision for one patient, one record, one umn. And actually, Upper Chesapeake is in the midst of transition from our current platform which is Meditech to Epic Portfolio.

In general, I’m actually glad that we are on this platform because Epic is the preferred electronic health record system used by more than 250 healthcare organizations nationwide. And over 45% of the US population, have their medical records in Epic system. It actually has the best organization retention rate amongst all other EHRs, and it’s ranked highest for provider satisfaction worldwide.

Host: So, there’s a lot of benefits there, more than 250 healthcare organizations nationwide use this. It has the best retention rate among all other EHRs, and it’s ranked highest for provider satisfaction worldwide. So, a lot of benefits there. Rick, we are going to turn to you now. Can you tell us what is Epic Portfolio?

Rick Casteel (Guest): Sure. Glad to Bill. A portfolio as it suggests is a range of products. So, Epic in an of itself, is not just one piece of software, but it’s many applications or modules that are all integrated and work together. So, you have the Epic Ambulatory which is used in our outpatient area and your Epic Inpatient, which is used in our inpatient clinical areas, but you also have discreet systems such as ASAP which is our ER module in the Epic world. You also have Epic Radiant which works in our radiology or our imaging area so there’s more than two dozen elements that make up Epic that help cover all the various specialty areas across the continuum of care of a patient so that we can help capture that patient’s encounter across the whole continuum of care.

Host: Right, so a broad suite of applications and Dr. Jokhadar, back to you. So, what do we hope to accomplish? Can you tell us what is possible with Epic?

Dr. Jokhadar: Sure. With our focus always on patient and family centered care, what we heard from patients that they are actually running out of patience. They demand unified platforms for them to access their own medical record and Epic will be able to give us that using patient portal which is called My Chart and My Portfolio. Also, will give us access to innovative patient centric care at every touch point and one thing I want to highlight is our use of integrated telemedicine capabilities within Epic.

What’s going to be very exciting for providers as well is robust mobile apps that are provided by Epic. They are actually called Haiku and Canto and spelled as H-A-I-K-U and C-A-N-T-O. These are for providers to be able to access Epic on a mobile platform and there’s an equivalent for that called Rover that is used by our nurses.

It also, as a byproduct and a benefit of our project, we are going to implement a simplified log in using badge tap and go with single sign on to be provided in all our clinical areas. And one other feature we are very excited about that also is a byproduct of our project is the ability to capture patient photos within EHR as an extra measure of identification for those patients.

Host: So, it sounds like many possibilities and I really like that patients will be able to access their own records. So, Rick, can you tell us what is the roll out plan for Epic?

Rick: Sure, I’m glad to. And actually, this process started some number of years ago when Upper Chesapeake joined as a member of the University of Maryland Medical Systems. We were on different EHR platforms at the time, but Upper Chesapeake worked with University of Maryland to start sharing some of our patient data several years ago. So, we’ve actually been populating the University Of Maryland’s system for some time. The advantages to that is that as we move over to that platform; a lot of that historical patient data will already be there for us to be able to take advantage of.

And there’s a lot of moving parts and kind of becoming part of a bigger system. So, while Epic is kind of the cornerstone and one of the larger moving pieces in all of this, we are also moving over our active directory which is our identity management for everybody in the organization. Our email systems and those things have already started. So, up until this point, which is now mid-year 2019, we’ve been working on planning, and discovery, just trying to understand what the implications will be as we move forward.

We’ve got that part done so that now the team at University can start to build the elements that they found that need to be built in the Epic world for us to maintain our operations when we get onto the platform. We’ll soon be going into a hardware assessment phase where we take a look at all the areas and the various clinical and administrative functions that are carried out throughout Upper Chesapeake and determining what those hardware needs are and addressing those. So, we’ve been building up. You can imagine it’s a lot of work. It’s a big lift, a lot of coordination goes into that effort leading up to our go live in March of 2020.

Host: That is a big lift. My goodness. And so, it looks like you have got a multi-phase roll out plan underway. So, Dr. Jokhadar, can you tell us about the UM’s Portfolio Governance Model?

Dr. Jokhadar: Sure. I’ll be happy to. So, UM’s actually has 14 individual hospitals that belong to the system and you can imagine that sometimes you will have different workflows and best practices at each hospital. So, this model enables us to collaborate with each other through governance committees that are called User Design Centers. Or UDCs. Our team members are going to be hearing a lot about those UDCs and this would be the platform for us to collaborate and share information and best practices and work towards standardizing our workflow. So, they will have providers UDCs, nurses and all or most of the actual service areas will have a unique UDC where team members from several hospitals under University of Maryland Medical System can collaborate and share best practices.

Host: So, remember that acronym UDC, which stands for User Design Centers and then Rick, what can you tell us about the IT shared services?

Rick: Just part of this migration and part of the advantage of being part of a larger system like University of Maryland is that we are able to take a small team that we had here at Upper Chesapeake that kind of had to be masters of all trades and leverage resources across the multiple facilities that make up the medical system and get folks that are very specialized in what they do. So, IT is going to be one of those departments that become part of a shared services model. So, that whether you are doing Epic here at Upper Chesapeake or at St. Joseph’s Medical Center or the Medical Center downtown; we will be all using the same platform being managed and maintained by the same group of folks. So, that helps us maintain certain levels of sameness and quality and be able to measure across facilities how we are doing in terms of taking care of our patients.

So, there are great advantages to being able to leverage that larger data set and larger view of the impact of systems than it is at a smaller site. So, shared services is going to be part of that migration along with our software of also people and services so that we can again, leverage those resources across a broader spectrum of people.

Host: That is really exciting and going to be very, very helpful. So, I know everyone at Upper Chesapeake has this question Dr. Jokhadar, tell us about the training.

Dr. Jokhadar: Sure, I’ll be happy to. So, part of actually of the secret sauce of a good roll out and successful implementation of any EHR has two components. One is a great system configuration and we’re very fortunate that we’re tagging on to an already existing platform with Epic Portfolio that our folks at other hospitals have worked on mastering and refining. But in addition to that, we also have to implement strong user proficiency and that can only be accomplished through robust training.

So, training will start almost eight weeks prior to our Go Live date which as Rick mentioned will be on March 15, 2020. So, eight weeks before that, early January 2020, we will be offering classes for training for our providers and other team members and then two to three weeks prior to Go Live, we are going to be offering what we call personalization labs where providers and team members can go and start tinkering around with their profile in Epic and be able to customize it to their needs so come day one of Go Live, they are ready to go and hopefully be well-positioned to use the system efficiently.

Host: And that is the secret sauce. Great system configuration plus strong user proficiency equals the best outcome with successful implementation and adoption. So, Rick, as we wrap up, can you give us your final thoughts on the move to Epic?ost:H

Rick: Yeah, this will no doubt be one of the biggest things that Upper Chesapeake ever has undertaken and with that, there’s always a little bit of anxiety about change. And so, we’ve been doing a lot of communications to make sure our staff understands what’s going on and using new platforms like this podcast here to help communicate those things out. And also, having regular meetings with out leadership team and the departments that are being impacted because change just evokes such strong emotional response.

But the thing to remember most about change and that we are trying to encourage folks to look at is the positive aspects that come along with becoming part of a larger system and having those resources available to us that we’ve never had before and so while this is certainly going to be very time consuming; it’s going to be well worth it in the end and I think we’ll see great benefits once we get up and stable and used to the new platform.

Host: That’s a really good message about change and how a big undertaking like this can certainly create some anxiety, but everyone needs to pay attention to the positive benefits and outcomes that this is going to provide and Dr. Jokhadar, going to ask you the same question. Can you give us your final thoughts on the move to Epic?

Dr. Jokhadar: Sure. My take on this in addition to what Rick had said, that we have to recognize that EHRs are no longer just part of how clinical care is documented but they are actually central to how clinical care is delivered. Ultimately, we need to move past the idea that the EHR is just an administrative tool and see it as a clinical tool, just like a medication, x-ray machine, or scalpel. So, the sooner we embrace that idea, then I think we would be able to leverage our EHR much better than currently being done anywhere in the nation.

Host: That’s a great thought as well. This is central to how clinical care is delivered. Well Rick and Dr. Jokhadar, thank you so much for your time today.

Dr. Jokhadar: Thank you very much.

Rick: Well thank you very much. Good talking to you Bill.

Host: And this is the Hero Podcast from UM Upper Chesapeake Health, a podcast for internal communications. Check back for our next episode soon and thanks for listening.