The new eStar technology replaces Vanderbilt Medical’s existing electronics medical records system called Star Panel, an internally developed electronic network made of more than 500 different applications.

A new electronic health records system that cost more than $200 million and took two years to deploy will enable new ways for Vanderbilt Medical Center to expedite digital healthcare.

In 2015, Vanderbilt Medical, a part of Vanderbilt University with hospitals, clinics, physician practices and affiliates covering nine hospital systems and 48 hospital locations serving 1.6 million patients annually, began the migration to a new electronic health records system from Epic Systems Corp.

The new eStar technology replaces Vanderbilt Medical’s existing electronics medical records system called Star Panel, an internally developed electronic network made of more than 500 different applications. The internal system had grown over the years in response to request from various Vanderbilt Medical departments. That turned the digital backbone for patient care at Vanderbilt into a complex patchwork of clinical and operational applications, says senior vice president for health information technology Dr. Kevin Johnson. “StarPanel was always in flux,” Johnson says. “We were continuously adding new features and fine-tuning things so it would do exactly what we needed it to do.”

Last year 167,000 consumers logged in 3.7 million times to the My Health portal.

Having an isolated and internally developed electronic health records system made it difficult to share information with other providers, such as when referring physicians want to electronically transmit detailed medical records for a patient and have them instantly appear in the system.

It also meant that new faculty and staff who trained or worked in other healthcare institutions had a steep learning curve in front of them when it came to adapting to StarPanel. As Vanderbilt Medical emerged as a bigger regional healthcare system within the southern U.S., operating an internally developed system available only to Vanderbilt Medical facilities and staff became an issue. “It was so important, as we were exploring our options, to really focus on solutions that would help us stay better connected to other institutions,” Johnson says.

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In 2016 Vanderbilt Medical and a staff of nearly 1,000 employees from multiple departments began the process of writing the new workflows and specifications for an Epic electronic records system that would group 500 disparate applications into 25 modules. With this system, 17,000 Vanderbilt Medical employees can sign in to access a single dashboard that displays information from all these programs. “Clinicians don’t need to have multiple windows open at once,” Johnson says. “In our new integrated system, lab and test results will appear in one system, even if they’re not created using Epic.”

The new Epic system goes live on Nov. 2 and when it does Vanderbilt Medical will be able to offer better self-service tools for patients and a healthcare database and network that can be better connected to the broader healthcare system.

“The Epic system will make workflow more efficient because it requires less toggling between multiple screens,” says Vanderbilt Medical CEO Dr. Jeff Balser, It also allows patients’ medical information to be efficiently shared virtually anywhere among other Epic-based clinicians, hospitals and health systems who care for 190 million patients across the U.S.

“Through eStar we wanted to lay the right foundation for the future, a system that lets us interact with broad geographies, diverse care settings, and patients using a range of devices, from laptops to iWatches,” Balser says. Two major goals aimed at improving patient satisfaction are elimination of paper forms in clinics and wider use of Vanderbilt Medical’s My Health portal to schedule return appointments online, Balser says.

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“We’re going to have four of our major clinics—internal medicine/primary care, women’s health, orthopedics and the eye institute—market the use of My Health at Vanderbilt to schedule return appointments,” he says. “While this will soon be available for all clinics, we are going to market these four initially because they have high utilization of My Health.” Other areas will begin marketing the online scheduling feature once the system is live, he says.

Prior to the rollout of its new system Vanderbilt Medical already had a substantial digital healthcare base. Last year 167,000 consumers logged in 3.7 million times to the My Health portal. About one in three Vanderbilt patients uses the portal and in several clinics the adoption rate is above 75%, the health system says. Last year Vanderbilt Medical Vanderbilt also introduced online patient reviews and ratings of its physicians. The medical center also rolled out a new mobile healthcare program for scheduling home healthcare visits in and around Nashville, where Vanderbilt University is located.

The new service Vanderbilt Health OnCall lets patients ages 18-64 request an on-site visit using a free mobile app or by completing a brief online form at Vanderbilthealth.com. Vanderbilt Health OnCall providers are credentialed nurse practitioners and are available seven days a week, on a varying schedule.

With a new, integrated and updated electronic health records system in place, Vanderbilt Medical will put in place updated digital healthcare features including:

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Patients will be able to schedule, reschedule and cancel clinic appointments and add themselves to clinic waiting lists.

  • Starting 24 hours before a clinic appointment, patients will be able to check in online and complete patient intake forms.
  • Patients and their caregivers will find it easier to create a digital healthcare account. Beginning Nov. 2 prospective users will have the option to use third-party authentication tools on the portal site to confirm their identity and complete system registration online from home. “This will make it easier for new patients to schedule appointments, fill out pre-visit questionnaires and communicate with clinic offices,” says Vanderbilt medical director of patient experience and access Brian Carlson
  • Patients will be able to update their lists of medications, diagnoses, allergies and other information.

“We want to engage every patient through My Health at Vanderbilt, but most of all we want to engage people who come here for chronic care, for cancer care, for complex surgery. That’s where we really get value engaging people in the health care process,” says My Health director Dr. Trent Rosenbloom.

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