Case Study
Post-Merger Transition to Independent Epic EHR Completed in Months
- Customer: An Illinois medical center
- Challenge: Transition from Community Connect to an independent Epic EHR in just a few months without disrupting patient care.
Results
- EHR platform redesigned and optimized for a single medical center with streamlined operations and newly established governance structure
- Independent Epic EHR system went live by the transfer deadline, with minimal disruption to patients and users
- Revenue cycle returned to baseline within Epic’s expected time frame
Background and Challenge
A large health system sold an Illinois medical center to private investors but allowed it to continue using the health system’s Epic EHR platform via the Community Connect program. A year later, the health system was involved in a merger and the EHR agreement changed. The medical center suddenly needed to fund and move to its own EHR system on a very tight time frame. In only a few months, they had to map a path to independence and go live 90 days after receiving their initial Epic instance, all while ensuring little to no disruption of patient care.
Solution
Tegria kicked off the engagement by developing a total cost of ownership and implementation plan for the medical center to transfer, customize, and maintain the Epic Enterprises Suite and more than 30 third-party integrations. Tegria experts identified major risks of the switchover and developed mitigation strategies to enable the medical center to complete the implementation with confidence, despite time and budget constraints.
In a major technical lift, the medical center bought and installed servers, other hardware, and software, transferred all the connections from the previous system to theirs, and learned to run their new system. Tegria guided every step of the process, including:
- Coordinating the technical strategy and implementation with Epic
- Building new environment and modified data structures
- Configuring and testing the system before go-live
- Adapting workflows and processes
- Creating and executing change management and operational readiness programs
- Training IT staff
Results
An EHR implementation that would normally take nearly a year to plan and execute was completed in a fraction of that time. Key results included:
- EHR platform redesigned and optimized for a single medical center with streamlined operations and newly established governance structure
- Independent Epic EHR system went live by the transfer deadline, with minimal disruption to patients and the hospital’s Epic users
- Revenue cycle returned to baseline within Epic’s expected time frame