Valley Health investing $50M to upgrade electronic medical record system
By MATT WELCH The Winchester Star
Aug 1, 2022
WINCHESTER — “This is one small step for technology and one giant leap for health and wellness in our community,” Valley Health President and CEO Mark Nantz said on Monday about Project Elevate — a 16-month process that Valley Health is undergoing to implement its own more robust version of the electronic medical record system, Epic, which it has used since 2014.
“This is a pretty major endeavor for us,” Nantz said during the announcement in the Winchester Medical Center Conference Center. “It’s a big lift. Most of you who were here back in 2012 and 2014, it was a lot of work then and it’ll be a lot of work now. But it’ll be our own.”
Project Elevate is slated for completion by November 2023.
Over the past eight years, Valley Health hospitals, outpatient clinics and affiliated providers have used Epic to document medical care, order tests and procedures, and communicate with patients and medical professionals. The service has been made available through a partnership with Inova Health System.
The partnership helped Valley Health streamline the initial implementation process while curbing expenses, Valley Health officials said. Project Elevate, however, will allow Valley Health to transition to its own upgraded electronic medical record system, which will be managed exclusively by Valley Health. Valley Health will continue to partner with Inova during the transition as well as the Huntzinger Management Group.
In April, Valley Health’s Board of Trustees approved $50 million to fund Project Elevate. About $17 million will be spent on outside labor and expertise.
Project Elevate aims to give Valley Health more flexibility and independence, improve responsiveness and add three new modules currently not on Epic such as laboratory, cardiology and home health.
“This is a future where we’re shooting for technology being better used to take care of our patients, to communicate with one another, to communicate with our clinicians,” Nantz said.
Valley Health has 8,640 active Epic users and 99,562 MyChart users, which is Epic’s patient portal. Additionally, 1,006 physicians and advanced practice clinicians with Valley Health use Epic.
Nancy Ripari, Huntzinger Management Group’s interim chief information officer, explained that five new applications will be implemented as part of Project Elevate: Cupid will be for invasive and non-invasive cardiology; Beaker will replace ALab; Dorothy will replace McKesson Home Health; OnBase will replace OneContent for patient documents, and Optimization will be for targeted improvements to key functions.
Beaker and Cupid are expected to launch in July 2023, followed by Optimization in September and Dorothy in October. Everything associated with Project Elevate is slated to go live on Nov. 4, 2023.
