Epic’s Care Everywhere creating stronger connection to our patients.
Visiting for the holidays, an out-of-town dialysis patient arrives by ambulance at a Houston Methodist emergency room with chest pain. What medications is the patient taking? Allergies? When was the last dialysis treatment? Is the patient diabetic? Any recent hospitalizations?
The care team does a quick search on Epic Care Everywhere and reviews the patient’s complete medical history, including treatment at other healthcare organizations. In minutes, the physician is providing the treatment needed – quickly, safely and securely.
After the holidays, when the patient returns home, their dialysis provider who is also using Epic can easily retrieve the patient’s complete summary of the recent hospital stay.
We’ve exchanged more than 7.5 million medical records since November 2016. This tally includes Houston Methodist sending 4.4 million records to other healthcare organizations and receiving 3.1 million from patients seen at other hospital systems.
Driving healthcare excellence.
Care Everywhere is an Epic feature allowing physicians and healthcare providers anywhere to electronically transmit and receive patient health records among authorized caregivers.
“This exchange of patient information ensures sound continuity of care, as well as eliminates duplicate testing if a report or result already exists,” said Robert Eardley, chief information officer at Houston Methodist, an eight-hospital system in Houston.
“This allows for better care coordination among physicians, hospitals, long-term care facilities and other health organizations,” he said. Houston Methodist recently completed implementing Epic systemwide, receiving national recognition for a seamless transfer to the electronic health record.
Step into the future of improved patient care.
Before EHRs, an emergency room scenario often found physicians forced to make split-second decisions, depending on little more than a traumatized family member’s memory of current medications, allergies and co-morbidities like asthma or congestive heart failure.
Not only does this technology improve urgent care, for non-emergent care it also reduces time spent in administrative work.
“Transfer of medical records required this effort using an entirely manual process,” Eardley said. “Patients themselves often functioned as couriers, hand-carrying CDs loaded with their X-rays and MRIs to the specialist.”
Another hurdle ― if the clinical imaging software systems varied, the specialist couldn’t open the family physician’s CD, rendering as null the patient’s careful transport of their medical records.
A tightly woven web of information does one thing. It makes it easier to help patients.
“The patient handoff process improves dramatically with the visibility provided with Care Everywhere, throughout the continuum of care,” said Dr. Nicholas Desai, Houston Methodist chief medical information officer. “This free flow of health information enhances our ability to care for patients because we know the precise medical history of the patient depending on us for treatment.”
Reducing healthcare costs.
Care Everywhere also serves as a conduit for preventing duplicate diagnostic procedures. This can keep patients from undergoing unnecessary tests, which can be anxiety-provoking, in addition to costing time and money.
“We can draw a straight line between Care Everywhere and the ability to reduce healthcare costs nationally due to eliminating duplicate diagnostics,” Desai said.
Physician time, too, is impacted by electronic health records.
“We can’t overstate the value of this technology,” he said. “When we as physicians are looking at an MRI taken last week, maybe we don’t need to repeat that MRI because we can see the medical information we need.”
The Care Everywhere technology easily saves an average of one hour per patient, Desai said.
“When you translate that one hour into thousands of patients over weeks and months, across healthcare organizations nationwide, you can see the monumental cost savings Care Everywhere provides,” he said.
A growing network. 7.5 million records and counting.
Houston Methodist has joined healthcare organizations nationwide, and now some even globally, on the Epic Care Everywhere network. This is a major advance in obtaining the complete patient story.
It’s also streamlining the patient experience across the city. Houston Methodist has exchanged more than 1.6 million records with The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and more than 1 million with Texas Children’s Hospital, to name a few.
Protects patient privacy.
If patients don’t want their medical information exchanged, they can opt-out of Care Everywhere.
Houston Methodist takes every precaution to keep patient records private and secure. Only the healthcare providers involved with patient care can access medical information.