Novant dumping paper records for digital ones
Chronicle Staff Report
Novant Health has completed its electronic health record rollout.
The locally-based medical group, which spans from Virginia to South Carolina, now has 343 clinics and 1,441 providers live on its electronic practice management system and 316 clinics and 1,205 providers using its electronic health record. Its hospital will be added to the system beginning in the fall.
“Our rollout was an integrated, methodical process, and the results show,” said R. Henry Capps, Jr., M.D., co-chief medical information officer for the medical group. “In two years, we brought more than 240 clinics from paper charts to an electronic health record, converted 28 different electronic health record systems our clinics were already using, and consolidated more than 100 billing offices into one. This is a huge win for our organization and, most importantly, for our patients.”
Novant Health patients now have one record that can be seamlessly accessed across all medical group practices, empowering connectivity and improving Novant Health’s ability to exchange information within the system. This ability has numerous benefits to patients including enhanced patient safety through streamlined workflows, integrated decisions support and reminders for health maintenance, as well as increased operational efficiency and maintained affordability through immediate access to medical records, and a reduction in paperwork and printing costs.
A significant patient benefit of the new electronic health record is “MyChart” — a feature that allows patients to access their medical record online. More than 185,000 Novant Health patients are already signed-up to use MyChart.
“MyChart truly has made healthcare simpler and more convenient, and patients are taking to it,” said Dr. Capps. “In the last year alone, 12,682 online appointments were made … through MyChart.”
Novant Health will continue to work to bring all of its facilities into the digital age. This fall, Novant Health Presbyterian Medical Center in Charlotte will become the first of its 14 medical centers to go-live on the system.
