Integrated Services that Work Within the Epic® Workflow
260 hospitals and health systems across the US use Epic® Systems for Electronic Health Records (EHRs) and by July 2013, more than 127 million patients will have EHRs powered by the company.1 Epic established a large user base in the EHR realm well before 2009’s enactment of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act that compels EHR adoption systemwide. Now that the shift to advanced Health Information Systems (HIS) is part of health reform legislation, it’s clear our industry is in the midst of an “Epic” shift—and one that has likely already touched your organization.
At its core, the goal of HITECH is to create a system in which patient information is accessible and shareable across organizations so that the best coordinated care is achieved. It sounds so simple, yet our industry is complicated. It’s challenging to make information shareable within one hospital, let alone across an entire system. Though your organization may have selected Epic for EHRs, the work isn’t done to meet HITECH mandates, let alone reach the goal of seamlessly sharing patient data. You must integrate all aspects of Epic EHRs’ clinical information (Inpatient Registration, ADT and Hospital Billing software) with essential administrative and financial data. All aspects of health information have to converge within the daily workflow for the “high tech” of HITECH to be meaningful. Otherwise, a large piece of the puzzle is missing.
When platforms within an HIS don’t communicate and thus require employees to do work-arounds, rekey data or search for information that isn’t shareable, medical and administrative staff suffer from depleted resources. For institutions with large case loads, adding even one minute to the handling of each patient’s file for clinical or administrative reasons can add hours to workdays.
Fortunately, there’s good news. Emdeon delivers leading EDI services, intelligent revenue cycle capability and the connectivity of the largest Healthcare Revenue and Payment Cycle Network in the industry all within the convenience of the Epic workflow. Seamless Epic interoperability that allows you to maintain just one workflow for eligibility and benefits verification, as well as claims, billing and payment management.
Emdeon’s approach of directly integrating EDI and revenue cycle capability within the Epic workflow is an excellent example of the direction a healthcare system should go if HITECH is to reach its ultimate goal. Technology simply won’t work piece by piece. Thankfully, Emdeon helps put the pieces together.
Is your organization using Epic today? Or, implementing or evaluating moving to Epic? Then it’s time you connect with a partner to help you simplify your revenue cycle end-to-end.
Epic is a registered trademark of Epic Systems Corporation.
Emdeon and Emdeon solutions are not affiliated with or endorsed by Epic Systems Corporation.
1 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/business/epic-systems-digitizing-health-records-before-it-was-cool.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
“Epic” Revenue Cycle Capability and Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) Solutions from Emdeon
