Terre Haute, Ind.-based Union Health is transitioning to an Epic EHR to reduce operating costs, boost data-sharing and improve cybersecurity, its chief executive told Becker’s.
The two-hospital system is planning to go live with the new system in January 2027, dedicating millions of dollars and more than two-thirds of its 66-person IT team to the project. Union Health started the implementation in August.
“It’s like changing an airplane engine while the plane’s in the air — you’ve got to have everything lined up, and there’s no room for mistakes,” said Steven Holman, president and CEO of the two-hospital system, with annual revenue of just under $1 billion.
Union Health had been on an Oracle Health (formerly known as Cerner) EHR since 2017, and GE Centricity before that, but discovered Epic had comparable capital expenses and lower operating costs, Mr. Holman said. This year’s hack of Oracle Health that compromised Union Health patient data also played a role in the switch, as did uncertainty over what the company’s new EHR will look like.
Indianapolis-based Indiana University Health’s decision to move to Epic factored in as well.
“Many of the major systems have Epic in the state of Indiana, so that’s excellent for coordination of care,” Mr. Holman said.
He said Union Health only considered Epic and Oracle Health.
“All these systems are expensive,” he said. “They’re a significant investment, but we found Epic to be the most high-quality and cost-effective.”
“All of our physician councils endorsed [the switch] wholeheartedly,” he added. “With that being said, it’s never easy to go through a conversion, and all of us just want a good, methodical process.”
Teams from Union Health have been going back and forth to Epic’s Wisconsin headquarters to plan for the go-live.
Union Health also intends to adopt Epic’s entire suite of AI products, including its planned ambient AI scribe, and join the company’s Cosmos research platform, which incorporates insights from over 300 million anonymized patients’ records.
“The physicians are really excited about it: the listening when they go into the room and all the clinical information that’s available from those 300 million patients,” Mr. Holman said.
“It helps reduce their paperwork and also makes them much more efficient, all the way from documenting their plan of care to ordering, with many fewer clicks. And they’re excited about that because it makes their day better. They can focus more on seeing the patient, as opposed to documenting. And the peer collaboration and the best practices that are allowed through Epic are pretty neat.”
