Three Ways Epic Has Been Pivotal In Treating COVID-19 Patients

(Originally posted on LinkedIn)

Epic is the center point for many providers as they are interacting within the EHR for all of their day-to-day responsibilities. For many patients, MyChart is the only part of Epic that they are aware of. Because of COVID, both providers and patients have relied on Epic more than ever and Epic has stepped up to help. Here are three ways that Epic has played a pivotal role in enabling providers and patients in COVID response.

Telehealth

Telehealth is likely the single largest contributor in being able to treat patients while preventing hospitals from being flooded. Epic partnered with Twilio so that providers can update clinical documentation and view patient histories while on a video visit that is launched within Epic workflows. This created a seamless platform for providers while ensuring that patients were getting the best level of care. This also meant that no one was forced to put themselves or anyone else at risk of COVID by coming in for an on-site visit.

Data

When COVID infection started to drastically increase, there was not enough data to enable leaders to make critical and informed decisions. These decisions have an immense impact on how providers treat patients and how patients can prevent infection. Epic created Pulse Central at the beginning of the pandemic to provide standardized metrics for COVID that were shared by nearly 1,200 hospitals. This was an example of the Epic community coming together to help create consistent processes of measurement while enabling healthcare leaders to make educated decisions on their local communities.

Field Hospital Support

One of the largest concerns with COVID was hospital capacity. As hospitals prepared to face the influx of patients, Epic worked with nearly 175+ health systems to increase hospital beds by 80,000. Epic was able to provide a path to setting up these temporary facilities, like gyms, garages, and convention centers, into fully functioning ICUs. They did this by either adding beds to their existing facility or creating an entirely new care facility depending on the needs of that particular health system and their patients.

Epic is constantly innovating as the leading EHR platform and has shown that it can pivot to handle the needs of its customers and the patients that they serve. This approach of consistent evolution and innovation will enable health systems and their providers to deliver top-level patient care while being better prepared for the future!