Unless you were out of touch the last few days the following is not news.
Epic chosen to deliver NSW Health's Single Digital Patient Record system
The EMR system will first go live at Hunter New England LHD.
By Adam Ang
November 23, 2022 04:24 AM
NSW Health has picked Epic to deliver its Single Digital Patient Record project, which seeks to unify all EMR and pathology information systems across the state.
Subject to the successful completion of contractual negotiations, Epic's supply contract will replace nine existing EMR platforms, six PAS, five pathology LIMS and several other clinical support systems, which have been provided by Cerner, Orion Health, DXC, Citadel, and Integrated Software Solutions.
The SDPR will provide comprehensive, real-time electronic access to medical records across NSW Health, covering 15 Local Health Districts (LHDs), two specialty health networks and all NSW Health pathology laboratories.
According to eHealth NSW chief executive and CIO Dr Zoran Bolevich, they engaged more than 350 expert stakeholders, including clinicians, scientists and technical experts, to evaluate Epic's supply proposal.
"Their expertise, along with meaningful engagement with healthcare consumers, will continue to guide us as we roll out SDPR across the state," he added.
THE LARGER TREND
Epic, which remains the Best in Klas software suite in 12 years, is also delivering ACT's statewide Digital Health Record system. The ACT government in August invested another $35 million in the project, which is expected to go online this year.
Meanwhile, the NSW government last year invested over $105 million in SDPR. The system will go live first at Hunter New England LHD before its full rollout across the state.
More here:
Among others there us coverage here:
Epic battle for NSW Health unseats a giant
Epic has won the bid to transform NSW Health’s digital health ecosystem by usurping long-term incumbent Cerner.
The IT transformation is expected to take six years and aims to achieve NSW Health’s goals including single patient identifiers, patient information portals and embedding virtual care as a part of routine care. In all, 350 expert stakeholders weighed in on the tender and favoured Epic over Cerner.
Michelle O’Brien is a digital health thought leader and former business executive for Medical Director and MediRecords. She said the decision to move away from Cerner was unexpected given the extent that Cerner is embedded in NSW Health.
“What is surprising though is the thought that you would put two global competitors into NSW Health together and expect them to be able to work together. I think that’s what shocked everyone in the market,” Ms O’Brien said.
Ms O’Brien added that although the market may be surprised, some users of NSW Health digital health systems were probably not as shocked by the decision.
“The systems in NSW hospitals are pretty old and a mishmash of technology. Cerner has multiple instances [versions] operating across NSW hospitals. I think Epic’s technology is seen as more innovative and more in line with the ability to be flexible and scalable,” she said.
So, who is Epic?
In short, the market leader in the US. They possess nearly 33% of the hospital market, according to Beckers Hospital Review. They have an office in Melbourne and 10 other cities around the globe and call their main office Wisconsin, US their “intergalactic headquarters”.
More here:
https://wildhealth.net.au/epic-battle-for-nsw-health-unseats-a-giant/
And here:
NSW to consider patient access to new digital health record
Justin Hendry
Editor
NSW Health this week announced its partnership with US-based electronic medical record (EMR) vendor Epic to deliver the state’s Single Digital Health Record (SDHR), ending a three-year search for a provider.
Epic has spent the last two years delivering the Australian Capital Territory’s Digital Health Record (DHR), having won a $128.3 million contract in July 2020. The DHR went live across Canberra last week.
New South Wales’ SDHR will replace nine existing EMR platforms provided by Cerner and Orion Health, six patient administration systems from Cerner and DXC and five pathology laboratory information management system.
It will be used across all 15 Local Health Districts, two Specialty Health Networks and NSW Health Pathology laboratories, giving clinicians access to real-time NSW Health medical records regardless of where a person is admitted.
The digital platform will be unlike the My Health Record system at the national level in that it is designed to be an operational record used by clinicians to manage patients within the NSW public health system.
But an eHealth NSW told InnovationAus.com that platform to be delivered by Epic “offers some additional functionality, such as a patient portal, which will be considered in the future to support patient interactions with the system”.
eHealth NSW first raised the prospect of allowing patients to access their NSW medical records when it initially went to market for the SDHR in mid-2019.
In a statement, eHealth NSW chief executive and NSW Health chief information officer, Dr Zoran Bolevich, said Epic was chosen after a “robust process” involving more than 350 clinicians, scientist, technical experts and other stakeholders.
More here:
https://www.innovationaus.com/nsw-to-consider-patient-access-to-new-digital-health-record/
The key question I have about all this is whether there has been any form of benefits analysis that shows that the benefits flowing to NSW from this change going to be in excess of the $1 Billion being spent and that those benefits are in excess of the benefits of the status quo which I am pretty sure have not been fully amortised!
A extra billion dollars is no chicken feed on top of what has already been spent – which seems to be working to some significant degree – as I observed personally in a recent stay at RNS a few years ago.
The disruption and retraining of the 120,000 staff in NSW Health is no trivial matter and has a real economic cost which I am sure is largely ignored – and remember these people are still recovering from a pretty terrible 3 years with COVID! I really wonder if the issues with the present systems are so severe and so urgent this switch has to happen now or is this some empire building in the part of eHealthNSW?
Simply might the NSW Health System have say a 5 year breather as COVID settles before being destabilised again? Can this huge move be really justified now?
What to people think? Insider comments welcome!
I note, in passing, that Epic does provide good patient information access facilities which may go some way to explaining the switch. Of course you could fix that issue for way less than a billion dollars!
David.
10 comments:
What do they mean by a "Single Digital Patient Record"?
Do they mean they only have one record of the patient or the patient only has one one health record?
There is a huge difference. I suspect it is the former and it's the usual exaggeration we have come to expect with health records.
It means they only have one record for each patient in the EPIC hospital system which can (will be) available to be accessed by authorized providers from anywhere.
Perhaps admins of systems currently in use could advise whether their data can be easily ported over to another system. The questions have been put, surely, very early in the consultation process so that confirmatory tests could be applied.
Since well-being of patients will depend on the many factors that make up a successful transfer, it would be reassuring to know that untruths & mistakes will be dealt with by something more appropriate than bureaucratic process.
@3:46 PM So a patient won't have a single record with all their data in?
And "authorized providers from anywhere" won't be able to go to a single record system and see all a patient's data?
So the system is for the hospital, not the patient?
@3:46PM Correct. It is not practicable to have medical practice data (GP & Specialist & Allied Health) included with the exception of Referral Letters / Requests.
You are spot on David. The question is not whether EPIC is better than Cerner. Based on multiple evaluations by clinicians, we already know the answer to that. The question is whether EPIC is two billion dollars better than Cerner.
And the other question is whether eHealth NSW have been really honest/clear with Treasury as to how much money they are really committing to beyond the initial $150M or so, which as you rightly observe, is hardly enough to even cover Hunter LHD.
@8:42 am The merits or otherwise of providing GPs with access to the EPIC DHR, and providing them with the ability to update the patient's medical record in real time, will soon become much clearer when GPs start to use the ACT Health's DHR Link portal now being deployed.
@4:13PM If GP and Specialists do update the EPIC DHR then the My Health Record would be redundant. Oh! ADHA won't be happy about that.
And don't forget the Private Imaging and Pathology groups - they won't be interested in sending their results to another data repository unless they get paid (by whom?) for doing so; for what benefit?
This looks like increasing duplication and fragmentation of health care data on the horizon. In effect the very opposite to what ADHA is trying to do!
"Epic's supply contract will replace:
9 existing EMR platforms,
6 PAS,
5 pathology LIMS,
provided by
Cerner, Orion Health, DXC, Citadel, and Integrated Software Solutions".
"The contract will be spread across:
15 Local Health Districts (LHDs)
2 specialty health networks
all NSW Health pathology laboratories."
This huge statewide NSW health IT project, covering 220 hospitals, 9500 beds, and 8 million patients, involves enormous sums of money, which, based on all available market parameters will exceed well over 1 billion dollars.
The risks involved in this project are enormous.
The NSW taxpayer carries these risks.
An independent audit of the decision making processes and documentation, the risk assessment processes and documentation, the cost benefit ROI methodology and documentation, including a thorough probity review, should be undertaken before the NSW government proceeds any further with contract signing.
Perhaps these tasks have already been undertaken. If not, they should have been. The results of the independent audit should be publicly available, accepting that some aspects will be Commercially Confidential and not for public consumption.
From this perspective transparency does seem to be lacking; notwithstanding the fact that, according to Dr Zoran Bolevich, 350 expert stakeholders, including clinicians, scientists and technical experts, weighed in on the tender and favoured Epic over Cerner.
By any standards of reasonableness EPIC should be given an opportunity to prove its capabilities and deploy its system across a contained, yet reasonably large, health ecosystem. The Hunter Region is well positioned to work with EPIC to be chosen to prove the pilot deployment. Once proven, and not until, the NSW government should then be free to extend EPIC's contract statewide.
Well said Ian. Bing Bang government IT projects have a habit of going disastrously wrong. This one seems no different than the others.
Maybe they selected EPIC over Cerner because of the troubles in the USA's Veterans Affairs
https://www.militarytimes.com/veterans/2022/07/27/vas-16-billion-health-records-overhaul-could-be-scrapped-if-fixes-arent-made/
However, I doubt that the product is at fault.
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