Sutter accelerates $400 million EMR installation

Sutter Health is accelerating its $400 million project to install an inpatient Epic Systems EMR in all 26 of its hospitals in Northern California, nearly two-and-a-half years after slowing down the rollout as the economy began to tank.

The Sacramento, Calif.-based health system will attempt to complete the project within five years. When Sutter delayed the implementation in late 2007, the organization said it would install the EMR in phases through 2015, starting with Sutter's six highest-volume hospitals. That started with Peninsula Medical Center in Burlingame, Calif., last year.

The new schedule has the same estimated completion date, but more hospitals will come online sooner. Sutter soon will begin pre-installation work at five hospitals--Sutter Maternity & Surgery Center of Santa Cruz, Menlo Park Surgical Hospital, Memorial Medical Center, Memorial Hospital Los Banos and Sutter Tracy Community Hospital--in anticipation of a 2011 go-live. The earlier plan called for just two facilities, neither on the new list, to be live on Epic by the middle of next year.

For more information:
- take a look at this San Francisco Business Times story

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