Though it apparently held out for a while, Kaiser Permanente Northern California has signed on to Epic Systems’ Care Everywhere, a network which allows Epic users to share various forms of clinical information, Modern Healthcare reports.
Care Everywhere allows participants to get a wide range of patient data, including real-time access to patient and family medical histories, medications, lab tests, physician notes and previous diagnoses. The Care Everywhere network debuted in California in 2008, and has since grown to a national roster of more than 200 Epic users.
Many of the state’s major healthcare players are involved, including Sutter Health, as well as prominent regional players such as Stanford Hospital and Clinics, USCF Medical Center and UC Davis Health System, according to Modern Healthcare. Kaiser Permanente Southern California also participates in the network.
According to Epic, the Care Everywhere system allows patients to take information with them between institutions whether or not both institutions use the Epic platform. Information can come from another Epic system, a non-Epic EMR that complies with industry standards, or directly from the patient.
But of course, the vendor likes to see Epic-to-Epic transmission best, as it notes on the corporate site: “When an Epic system is on both sides of the exchange, a richer data set is exchanged and additional conductivity options such as cross-organization referral management are available.”
Care Everywhere also comes with Lucy, a freestanding PHR not connected to any facility’s EMR system. According to Epic, Lucy follows patients wherever they receive care, and gathers data into a single source that’s readily accessible to clinicians and patients. Patients can enter health data directly into Lucy or upload Continuity of Care Documents from other facilities.
While connecting 200+ healthcare organizations together is a notable accomplishment, Care Everywhere is not going to end up as the default national HIE matter how hard Epic tries. As long as the vendor behind the HIE (Epic) has a strong incentive to favor one form of data exchange over another, it cuts down the likelihood that you’ll have true interoperability between these players. Still, I’ve got to admit it’s a pretty interesting development. Let’s see what healthcare organizations have to say that try to work with Care Everywhere without owning an Epic system.
P.S. It’ll also be interesting to see whether Epic is actually “best” for ACOs, as a KLAS study of a couple of years ago suggested. More recent data suggests that best-of-breed tools will be necessary to build an ACO, even if your organization has taken the massive Epic plunge.
