St. Luke’s Hospital transitioning to a new electronic health record

Patient charts at St. Luke's Hospital are transitioning to a new, electronic health record (EHR) system this week.

Epic is a system that advances patient safety and quality of care by providing a single, shared and secure electronic health record.

Doctors can use the technology to access critical patient information more quickly, including medical history, test results and prescriptions.

The Epic installation provides many benefits to patients, including:

• Elimination of duplicate tests

• Allergy and immunization history and alerts

• Sharing information with specialists collaborating on care

• Reduction in complexity and repeating of information between Iowa Health System hospitals and clinics

• Medication tracking, drug interaction alerts and automatic pharmacy medication orders

• Up-to-date diagnosis and treatment notes

"This is a sophisticated system that allows all of our caregivers to care for patients in a more advanced way," said Ted Townsend, St. Luke's President and CEO. "Features like clinical physician support remind caregivers of patient allergies and other medical conditions, adding another level of safety and ensuring that our patients get the best possible care."

To facilitate this major transition, the hospital established a command center with dozens of computer workstations, which will be staffed for during the transition with Epic and St. Luke's Information Technology employees. In addition, there are many Epic “super users” working the hospital floors – assisting nurses, doctors and staff with the new EHR.

Suggested photo caption: St. Luke's command center, which is providing support to doctors, nurses and staff making the electronic health record transition this week.