Massachusetts General Hospital launched a new electronic health record (EHR) system on April 2, made by Epic Systems Corp., as part of a $1.2 billion health IT overhaul undertaken by Partners HealthCare, the largest network of doctors and hospitals in Massachusetts.

The Epic software replaces a variety of different programs with a singular solution. Officials at Partners — which includes other Epic users Brigham and Women's Hospital and Dana Farber Cancer Institute — say that having one integrated program across their facilities would allow for more coordinated patient care, reported the Boston Globe. It allows patients better online access to their medical information, and has the potential to reduce medical errors since a patient will have one record throughout the Partners system, so information is more readily shared among doctors.

Partners reportedly hired 600 new employees and hundreds of consultants to work with Epic to build the system and then train thousands of doctors, nurses, physician assistants, and other workers to use it. The launching of the new system used the help of 2,300 Partners employees and contractors.
Ultimately, according to the Globe, the Epic install will extend across ten hospitals and 6,000 doctors. Partners is also working on a mobile app that will allow patients to check lab results, pay bills, schedule appointments, and interact with caregivers through questionnaires.

Other institutions that work with the Epic system include Stanford, Duke, Johns Hopkins, Dartmouth-Hitchcock and NYU, and 190 million patients have a current electronic record with Epic.

“It’s a large cultural transformation,” said Dr. O’Neil Britton, chief health information officer at Partners, in the Globe article. “It is the first time that all these organizations will be on the same record, which means a lot for our clinicians and our patients. This is the reason we embarked on this journey.”

In 2015, Walgreens medical clinics chose Epic’s system as their main EHR in hopes that the decision would support long-term growth in its health care clinics.

"As we continue to invest in our retail clinic business, it's critical to have these best-in-class intelligence tools that support our commitment to patient care, and can help position Healthcare Clinics as a strategic partner of choice within the communities we serve," said Jeff Koziel, group vice president for Walgreens Healthcare Clinics.

According to a report by Transparency Market Research, the global EHR market is expected to reach $23.98 billion by the end of 2020.

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