PORT ANGELES — The days of paper files and sticky notes are numbered at Olympic Medical Center.
The public hospital district is gearing up for a major transition into the world of electronic medical records.
Hospital commissioners Wednesday were briefed on the one-year switch to Epic health records and Lawson internal software.
No board action was taken in the twice-monthly meeting at the Port Angeles hospital.
Electronic medical records are key to OMC’s future because of federal financial incentives for hospitals that achieve a “meaningful use” of digital records and penalties for those that don’t.
The move to Epic digital records was one of the main reasons OMC affiliated with Swedish Medical Center last October.
Swedish and many other Seattle-area hospitals already use Epic, which is considered to be a leader in the field.
A surgeon in Port Angeles or Seattle will have access to a patient’s primary-care charts with the click of a mouse.
“The advantages, of course, of electronic health records are improving quality, increasing patients’ participation, improving the accuracy of outcomes and diagnoses, the continuity of care and coordination,” said Dr. Mark Fischer, medical adviser.
“And then, again, practice efficiencies and cost savings.”
Fischer said OMC has made the most of the technology it has “in spite of the fact that things are very sort of disconnected and difficult to integrate.”
OMC hopes to go live with Epic health records by next summer.
Before the hospital can make the switch, it needs to install Lawson, a financial, human resources, materials management and supply chain software that will connect to Epic.
The estimated cost of the Lawson software and licensing is $410,000.
The estimated implementation cost is $620,000 with an annual maintenance fee of $87,000, Chief Financial Officer Julie Rukstad said.
Commissioner Jim Leskinovitch asked hospital officials how long it would take to earn enough money to pay for the Lawson software.
“Fortunately, we’re eligible for [future] meaningful-use dollars,” Chief Executive Officer Eric Lewis said.
“If we achieve meaningful use of a certified system, Olympic Medical Center will be eligible for about $7 million. That’s the good news.
“The bad news is we’re going to spend $7 million,” Lewis added.
“This [Lawson software] is a little over a million, but the actual Epic install is going to be in the $6 million range.”
Medicare will reimburse the hospital over a four-year period if OMC achieves a meaningful use of digital health records, Lewis said.
If OMC fails to achieve a meaningful use of electronic medical records, Medicare will subtract 1 percent of its reimbursement in 2015, followed by a 2 percent reduction in 2016 and a 3 percent hit in 2017.
“We literally can’t survive as a hospital unless we adopt meaningful use of a certified system,” Lewis said.
“So it is a big deal.”
Lewis said Lawson will make OMC “significantly more efficient and put huge information in the hands of people who need it.”
“We’ve been on MediTech for 15 years, 20 years,” Lewis added.
“We’re going to be on Lawson-Epic for the next two decades, I think. It’s a big expenditure, but we have to think long term, and the government will be reimbursing us for these costs after we get it installed and working.”
Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5072, or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
