Information Systems

Sarah Bush Lincoln Implemented Electronic Health Record System

Sarah Bush Lincoln implemented Cerner, a sophisticated integrated electronic health records (EHR) system in the hospital and in all of its clinical facilities across the region.

Sarah Bush Lincoln is replacing Meditech, its previous system, with Cerner Millennium^® and its full suite of healthcare clinical and revenue cycle management solutions across the organization’s hospital, 30 clinics, new Regional Cancer Center and state-of-the-art Center for Healthy Living. Sarah Bush Lincoln will go-live with the new system on April 1.

“Our goal is to continually raise the bar in providing quality and enhancing safety for the people who trust us with their care,” SBL President & CEO Jerry Esker said. “This sophisticated system aligns with our vision to provide innovative, preventive and quality care to all of our patients.”

The roll out of this new system will eliminate all paper charts and allow caregivers to view results and documentation in real time so more timely decision can be made regarding the health of their patients.

SBL Vice President Medical Affairs Jim Hildebrandt, DO, explained that medical staff will be more easily able to manage the health of select populations such as people with congestive heart failure or diabetes, by analyzing patient data from multiple sources and identifying health trends.

“Cerner will enable medical staff to use meaningful data to predict what will happen within the community, so they can manage toward improving the care of their population,” Dr. Hildebrandt said. “Enabling our medical staff and patients to engage in their health and care delivery will propel us toward our goal of driving better outcomes for our patients and provide an even deeper level of continuity of care to keep people well and out of the hospital.”

“Our mission is to meet the needs of our community by lowering costs, increasing efficiency and managing the population one person at a time. We believe Cerner will help us achieve these goals,” SBL VP Information Systems Maggie Ratliff said. “The year-long process to build the system for Sarah Bush Lincoln has touched nearly all employees. We are very excited about its launch and we ask our community for a little patience during our first weeks as we learn to navigate it with greater ease.”

Additionally, patients will have the opportunity to sign into a new patient portal that consolidates a patient portal with the online bill pay portal. Together, it allows users to request a medication refill, request an appointment, view their Lab and Diagnostic Imaging results, message their doctor’s office, view upcoming appointments, access their health record and pay their bills online. Patients will have the opportunity to register for this portal at their first appointment following April 1.

Another significant change that patients will notice is that they will receive one consolidated invoice for services instead of an invoice for professional fees and an invoice for medical services, tests or procedures.

For more information about the new EHR, please contact Information Systems at 217 258-2435.