Mayo Clinic switches over to Epic Systems EHR management

Newswire: May 7, 2018.

Dateline: Rochester, Minn.

Mayo Clinic’s world-renowned main campus in Rochester, Minn., transitioned to a new electronic health records management platform by Epic Systems over the weekend, a key milestone in the clinic’s $1.5 billion transition to new EHR systems.

The transition covers nearly every aspect of Mayo Clinic for both patients and staff, reports The Post Bulletin of Rochester. Mayo Clinic’s existing EHR, billing, registration, scheduling and patient movement systems have all been moved to the new Epic platform.

A post on the Facebook page for clinic employees called it “an historic day for Mayo Clinic!” but many employees were not in as celebratory a mood. The Post Bulletin noted that some, on their personal social media accounts, called their first shifts under the new Epic systems the most difficult ones of their careers.

A doctor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center affirmed the feelings, saying the first days under a new system “will feel like doom,” but with technical support, things will get better.

Mayo Clinic’s transition is called “The Plummer Project” in reference to co-founder Dr. Henry Plummer, who pioneered the creation of a central medical record system more than a century ago.  It began in 2015 when Mayo Clinic inked a $1.5 billion contract with Epic to transition away from EHR systems managed by Cerner Corp. and General Electric. Epic Systems are used by the majority of U.S. medical facilities.

Mayo Clinic comprises the Mayo Clinic Health System in several states and three campuses in Minnesota, Arizona and Florida. The entire network will transition to Epic by October.

Read the full story here.