News

Summaries of open source, health care, or health IT news and information from various sources on the web selected by Open Health News (OHNews) staff. Links are provided to the original news or information source, e.g. news article, web site, journal,blog, video, etc.

See the following -

Epic EHR Adoption Partly To Blame In Maine Hospital Debate

Kyle Murphy | EHR Intelligence | May 2, 2013

The decision to shutter the emergency room at St. Andrews Hospital in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, has one local selectman questioning the high costs of the implementing an electronic medical record provided by Epic Systems. Read More »

Epic EHR Implementation Causes Financial Issues at MASS Hospital

Sara Heath | EHR Intelligence | March 31, 2016

A Massachusetts hospital will be laying off 95 employees as a result of financial losses following an Epic Systems EHR implementation. According to Jessica Bartlett of Boston Business Journal, Southcoast Hospital will be cutting one percent of its workforce across all three of its locations in Fall River, Wareham, and New Bedford, Massachusetts...

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Epic EHR Implementation Cited in Denver Health CEO’s Departure

Kyle Murphy, Ph.D. | EHR Intelligence | April 1, 2016

Is the forthcoming retirement of Denver Health CEO a sign of bad things to come for the health system which is set for an Epic EHR go-live in a week's time? Two reports lean well toward the affirmative. On Wednesday, the hospital's CEO Arthur Gonzalez announced his decision to step down from office on June 30...

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Epic EHR Still Costing Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center

Kyle Murphy | EHR Intelligence | November 1, 2013

It may be about time that Epic EHRs come with a warning label that has nothing to do with systems themselves but everything to do with the costs incurred by healthcare organizations adopting solutions from Epic Systems and how they will affect their bottom lines during the earliest phases of implementation. Read More »

Epic Grabs VA Software Contract

Tom Sullivan | Healthcare IT News | August 27, 2015

Epic, along with Lockheed Martin subsidiary Systems Made Simple, inked a five-year $624 million contract with Veterans Affairs. The deal is nowhere near the $4.3 billon that DoD awarded Cerner and Leidos for the first phase, of course, but it does hold the potential for a big payoff – publicity-wise at least – because the work Epic and SMS signed up to undertake addresses one of VA's most public pain points: patient scheduling.

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Epic Holdout Questions Install Craze

Bernie Monegain | Healthcare IT News | July 31, 2013

In a recent blog post, John Halamka, MD, chief information officer of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, offers his views on why the Epic EHR has gained unprecedented momentum in the market among providers nationwide -- not least among an elite group of hospitals in Boston. Read More »

Epic Implementation Results In $55.1M Operational Loss For Hospital

Jasmine Pennic | HIT Consultant | September 3, 2013

The rollout of the Epic electronic health records system contributed to a $55.1 million operational loss in fiscal 2012-13 for Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, according to a financial report released last week... Read More »

Epic In 2013 = AOL In 1999?

Matt Mattox | Axial Exchange | February 19, 2013

This is a good time to be a big EHR company. Health systems are willing to pay more than $100 million to have a new electronic health record system installed. The New York Times even fawned over the innovative prowess of Epic, which is arguably the most powerful EHR company on the planet. Read More »

Epic Installation Proves More Expensive

Mike Miliard | Healthcare IT News | December 27, 2013

Bringing the total cost to $200 million, the parent company of Maine Medical Center will be spending tens of millions more on training for its problematic Epic electronic health record implementation. Read More »

Epic Program Rollout Hits WF Baptist Finances Hard

Owen Covington | The Business Journal | April 5, 2013

Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center is likely to finish the fiscal year in the red this summer after a rocky start for a new electronic medical records system. Read More »

Epic Retains Lobbyist to Improve Image on Capitol Hill

Darius Tahir | Modern Healthcare | September 10, 2014

Electronic health-record giant Epic Systems Corp. has hired a lobbying firm for the first time to counter a perception on Capitol Hill that its EHR systems aren't interoperable with other vendors' technology. The Verona, Wis.-based company retained lobbyists Card & Associates in August, according to the federal Lobbying Disclosure Act database. Epic says in the registration that it's making the move to “educate members of Congress on the interoperability of Epic's healthcare information technology.”

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Epic Systems Feeling Heat Over Interoperability

Darius Tahir | Modern Healthcare | October 1, 2014

Epic Systems' August decision to retain a Washington lobbyist was widely seen as a sign that the leading electronic health-record system vendor is feeling political heat based on the perceived lack of interoperability between its EHR systems and other systems.

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Epic Systems Says Alliance Between Electronic Health Records Vendors Caught It By Surprise

Zina Moukheiber | Forbes | March 5, 2013

In a bid to put a private sector stamp on the push for interoperability, a group of electronic health records vendors led by Cerner and McKesson formed the CommonWell Health Alliance yesterday. Read More »

Epic To Open Source Code To OHSU

Neil Versel | Healthcare IT News | November 25, 2013

Epic Systems Corp. will help Oregon Health & Science University set up two laboratory installations of its EpicCare electronic health record on its servers for medical informatics education and research purposes. On the research side, the school will have access to Epic's source code. Read More »

Epic's EHR system to run on Linux

Don Fluckinger | TechTarget | May 29, 2012

Epic Systems Corp., one of several dominant EHR vendors for large hospitals, recently authorized implementations of its EHR system on Intel x86 servers running open-source Linux, virtualized to VMware. Prior to that, Epic ran exclusively on AIX and UNIX servers.

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