The weekend after Thanksgiving, clinic caregivers in Longview and North Cascade Cardiology (NCC) in Bellingham went live on Epic ambulatory.
"Overall, the go-live in Longview has gone very well," said
Donn McMillan, CIO for Columbia Network. He said the most challenging areas have been orders, medication refills and referrals. "Providers and other caregivers have quickly been mastering the basics. They have made impressive strides in a relatively short period."
Deb Huffman, clinic manager for NCC, echoed the sentiment for staff at her office. "The caregivers (at NCC) have exemplified the team approach in working together and adapting quickly to the new system."
Several Longview providers are piloting Dragon, a voice-text tool in Epic, with positive results to date, according to
Lori Charlton, PT, Program Manager Epic Optimization & Workflow.
The next community-wide rollout of Epic ambulatory is slated for March 1, 2014 in Vancouver. Other practices and areas new to PeaceHealth will go live later in the year. And the Epic Enterprise project (Epic in the hospitals) has also kicked off. Expect to see and hear more in the coming months.
