Piedmont Healthcare and Shepherd Center First in Georgia to Enter EHR Hosting Agreement

This week, leaders at Piedmont Healthcare and Shepherd Center signed a contract establishing the first hospital-to-hospital electronic health record (EHR) hosting agreement on the Epic platform in Georgia.

The agreement will bring Shepherd Center onto Piedmont’s Epic EHR, providing patients a single medical record within Shepherd, Piedmont and other organizations who use Epic, which facilitates better coordination of care and more seamless transitions among caregivers. Shepherd is already physically connected to Piedmont Atlanta Hospital by an underground tunnel, and with this agreement, Shepherd Center and Piedmont will benefit from an added level of connectivity that will better integrate patient care between the two hospitals.

“Sharing this platform will make medical care more seamless for patients and providers by allowing for better care coordination,” said Kevin Brown, president and CEO of Piedmont Healthcare. “Additionally, this arrangement helps our organizations address healthcare costs by sharing the resource of a major capital investment.”

Sarah Morrison, PTA, MBA, MHA, president and CEO of Shepherd Center, said: “Shepherd Center is excited about the Epic Community Connect partnership with Piedmont. With more than 50 percent of our patients requiring surgical or other acute medical care procedures at Piedmont Atlanta Hospital, about 80 percent of our consulting physicians being Piedmont physicians, and more than 60 percent of our top referral sources already using Epic, this partnership makes strategic sense. Shepherd believes that being on the same EHR platform with Piedmont and our referral sources will improve the continuity and quality of care for our patients, as well as improve organizational efficiencies.”

As one of the top 10-ranked rehabilitation hospitals in the nation, Shepherd Center will be able to share real-time clinical information with other facilities across the nation that also use Epic – an added benefit to patients when they return home.

Epic EHR was rated Best in KLAS in January 2017 for the seventh consecutive year. Piedmont implemented Epic in 2012, and it is estimated that 200 million people in the United States, nearly two-thirds of the population, have an Epic medical chart.

After an implementation period that will begin in early 2018, Shepherd Center is expected to begin using Piedmont’s EHR in February 2019.