Politico and Becker’s Hospital Review report that the U.S. Coast Guard has ended its electronic health record implementation contract with Epic Systems and reverted to paper records.
A Coast Guard spokesman told Politico that “various irregularities were uncovered, which are currently being reviewed.”
MedCity News reports that PeaceHealth, a 10-hospital system in the Pacific Northwest, continues to benefit from its real-time location system (RTLS).
In 2006, the Vancouver, Wash.-based not-for-profit system PeaceHealth started with an RTLS pilot in the emergency department of its Eugene, Ore., hospital to improve department efficiency. PeaceHealth later turned the Eugene facility into a specialty hospital, but replicated the RTLS setup in a replacement full-service hospital that opened in 2008.
“With the help of software from Versus Technology … PeaceHealth has since integrated the RTLS with its admit-discharge-transfer system and created a dashboard to track patient, staff and equipment movement throughout the ED and beyond. The dashboard displays pertinent patient data, including chief complaints and status of laboratory and imaging orders,” MedCity reported.
“And the health system is now starting to integrate the RTLS with its Epic Systems electronic health record”
Patrick Campbell, writing in Mother Jones magazine, denounces Epic Systems, the huge electronic medical records company, for a multitude of alleged sins.
As summarized by Becker’s Hospital Review, the issues include:
1. “Epic may be comprehensive, but the system’s individual modules are below average. ”
2. “There is no interoperability.”
3. “Epic focuses on Epic-to-Epic data exchange.
4. “{Epic founder and CEO} Judy Faulkner’s political leanings.”
5. “Is the government fed up with Epic?”
