Becker's Hospital Review

28 CIO / HEALTH IT 4 health systems switching to Epic EHR systems By Naomi Diaz Below are four health systems that launched a new Epic EHR system or announced plans to do so in May. 1. Audubon County (Iowa) Memorial Hospital and its as- sociated clinics announced plans to transition its current EHR system to Epic's EHR system on May 2. 2. Garrett Regional Medical Center (Oakland, Md.) will receive $650,000 in federal funding to purchase an Epic EHR system. 3. NCH Healthcare System (Naples, Fla.) will spend $65 million to transition its Cerner EHR system to an Epic system. 4. Farmington, Conn.-based UConn Health's neonatal intensive care unit will go live with Epic's EHR system June 28. Epic's system will replace the unit's paper re- cord keeping system. n Florida hospitals lack data to comply with governor's executive order on immigration By Laura Dyrda F lorida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed an executive order last September requiring hospitals to collect data on the amount of money spent to care for immi- grants living in the country without legal documentation. However, 10 months later, many hospitals have failed to meet those requirements because they don't require patients to reveal their immigration status, according to The Gainesville Sun. HCA Florida North Florida told the Sun that while it does not inquire about immigration status before treating pa- tients, the system has connected with state officials to see what potentially helpful information is available. Simone Marstiller, the secretary of the Florida Agency for Healthcare Administration, sent a letter to the Florida Hospital Association requesting a report on care costs for immigrants without documentation with a May 31 deadline. Many hospitals in the state still do not comply with the order because of insufficient data. AHCA has not stated whether there will be penalties for noncompliant hospitals. n What's next for Epic, Cerner By Laura Dyrda Epic and Cerner make up more than half of the U.S. hospital EHR market, but they are leaning into different strategies for growth. Epic ended 2021 as the market leader, with nearly 33 percent of the hospital market, according to healthcare IT researchers KLAS. Epic added 74 hospitals to its system last year and continues to sign new high-profile customers. In late May, Naples, Fla.-based NCH Health- care System said it spent $65 million to transition its Cerner EHR to Epic so patients could more easily share records between other large health systems across the country. Hospitals have traditionally been Epic's main customer, but last Sep- tember the company announced Walmart will deploy Epic EHR at its health centers this year. Epic agreed to support all Walmart Health's lines of business so patients will have a unified health record across its care settings and locations. Epic is also leaning into Cosmos, its deidentified patient data and re- search platform. Cosmos launched in 2017 and now has data from 140 million patients, including 6.1 million cancer patients. e company gathers the data from 960 hospitals and more than 20,000 clinics using its EHR. Cosmos has data on 4.7 billion patient visits from a diverse patient population. During the pandmeic, Epic launched a journal where customers could publish findings based on data collected through its EHRs. e most recent findings include studies on breakthrough COVID-19 cases, de- layed cancer screenings during the pandemic and firearms injuries. Access to the large Epic datasets, which include many of the largest hospitals and health systems across the U.S., is a value proposition for the company and could spark additional partnerships. Cerner, on the other hand, is leaning into clinical expertise on the team to develop a more clinician-focused product. Cerner held 24.4 percent of the hospital market at the end of 2021 and added five hos- pitals last year. e company also named a new CEO, David Feinberg, MD, former Google Health executive and CEO of Danville, Pa.-based Geisinger. Dr. Feinberg said the company is focused on modernizing the EHR platform and embarked on a cultural shi from being a technolo- gy-driven company to becoming more clinically driven. e company aims to launch a product focused on interoperability, Seamless Ex- change, later this year and focus on equitable technology adoption. "is year, we hired Cerner's first chief health officer," Dr. Feinberg said at the Becker's 12th Annual Meeting in April. "We have more than 1,000 doctors and nurses at Cerner. eir job now is to be more clin- ical and to meet with customers to identify problems we need to take action on and fix." Cerner reported $206.1 million in net earnings for the first quarter of the year, up 20 percent from the same period last year, despite con- tinued high-profile challenges rolling out its EHR with the Veterans Affairs Department as part of a $16.1 billion partnership. Cerner is also in the process of being acquired by Oracle in a $28 bil- lion deal, which will lead the company down a new growth path with access to more resources. e transaction is expected to close later this year, and Cerner will become a dedicated industry business unit with- in Oracle. Oracle also plans to make its hands-free voice assistant the primary interface in Cerner clinical systems. n

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