Piedmont Launches Epic Electronic Medical Records System at Five of Its Newest Hospitals
Tuesday, June 14th, 2022
Piedmont is extending the latest functionality in the hassle-free experience it offers to patients with the launch of Epic’s Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system to five of its newest hospitals: Piedmont Cartersville Medical Center, Piedmont Eastside Medical Center, Piedmont Eastside South Campus, Piedmont Macon Medical Center and Piedmont Macon North Hospital.
Those hospitals joined the Piedmont system on Aug. 1, 2021, and Piedmont has now converted them to its EMR. Piedmont has made the significant investment to provide high-quality, patient-focused care to these communities, with the most recent of these investments having a positive impact on patient’s ease of care. Epic stores patients’ health information from across the Piedmont system in one electronic medical chart, so each patient has only one comprehensive medical record in Epic, no matter which Piedmont hospital, doctor’s office or clinic he or she visits.
Piedmont patients and their designated caregivers can also use Piedmont MyChart, the system’s portal, for personalized and secure online access to their health information. Piedmont MyChart lets patients communicate with providers, schedule appointments and perform e-check prior to arrival, refill prescriptions, and more. It’s now also easier for patients to receive care with a Piedmont doctor or at Piedmont Urgent Care locations through online and on-the-go appointment booking and virtual on-demand video visits.
“We are pleased and excited to offer a new level of convenience to our patients for their health-care needs,” said Leigh Hamby, M.D., Piedmont’s chief medical officer. “Clinical staff throughout our system will now be able to pull up a patient’s medical history quickly and know about current medications, allergies and other essential patient information. That level of integration, transparency and communication is crucial to caring for our patients and helping them stay healthy.
“We’ve seen great engagement across the board, from our physicians and nurses to our scheduling and registration staff, throughout the implementation of this new system. That preparation paid off, and we thank everyone for their patience, as we worked to ensure our patients continue to receive the highest quality of care during our transition.”
The launch at these hospitals came following nearly nine months of preparation, training more than 1,700 clinicians and other hospital staff for the new system. To help with the launch, volunteers from other Piedmont hospitals who use Epic as part of their daily jobs provided at-the-elbow support the week leading up to the launch and on launch day.
In addition, quality measures such as Epic Rover uses barcodes to document patient medication administration at the bedside and Dragon Medical One allows providers to have real time speech recognition documentation in Epic.
