Health

18 HEALTH • September 21, 2015 UMass Memorial seeks to 'talk' to other regional pro- viders through $700M IT project \\ By Livia Gershon SEAMLESS HEALTH RECORDS SHARING? T his summer, UMass Memorial Health Care made a big statement about its commit- ment to health care information technology when the Worcester-based health care system, the dominant provider in Central Massachusetts, revealed it would spend $700 million upgrading its electronic health records system. Suddenly, a system that had been shedding services in the previous couple of years in order to shore up its finances was detailing plans to purchase one of the most expensive electronic health records systems on the market from Epic Systems Corp. Along with the software, the process of building out the necessary IT infrastructure would contribute to the total invest- ment of $700 million throughout the multi-year project. The system's Worcester hospitals are expect- ed to go live with Epic in July 2017 before it is extended to UMass Memorial's community hospitals and physician practices throughout the region. Having an electronic health records system that allows doctors to share information across all UMass Memorial sites is the goal, and President and CEO Eric Dickson said at the time of the announce- ment that improving efficiency by two or three percent through the project life will make the $700 million back several times over in a short period of time. That's because time spent trying to obtain records at different sites costs money and also impacts the quality of care patients receive. But this opportunity isn't just for UMass Memorial hospitals and doctors. Dickson said in an interview last month that hospital executives are in the pro- cess of enticing affiliated hospitals outside the ILLUSTRATION/DREAMSTIME.COM

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