Lansing-based Sparrow Health System is launching an effort to bring its medical system into the electronic age.
It has pledged to spend more than $10 million to complete the first phase of its plan by the end of 2010. By then, all 24 of its physicians’ offices will be wired, so that patient’s records will be available online and secure; doctors will be able to track lab orders and results; and patients will have access to their own records and be able to make appointments, says Tom Bres, vice-president.
Electronic practice management will also be offered so providers can schedule, bill and check patients in online.
The next phase will connect the doctors’ offices to Sparrow hospital itself. Ultimately, the network will integrate with the Capital area’s effort, Bres says.
Sparrow has contracted with Wisconsin-based Epic Systems Corp., a 30-year-old company that has designed systems for the Cleveland Clinic, Beaumont Hospital, Covenant Health and Spectrum Health, among 180 others.
“We didn’t want to go with some fly-by-night outfit,” Bres says.
Bres says Sparrow has been working on this effort for months, but it will benefit from the Medicare Reimbursement Incentives offered by the federal government to providers utilizing electronic medical records in a meaningful way.
Once its employee-physicians are wired, Sparrow will offer the system to any physician having Sparrow privileges for a fee, not yet determined.
Source: Tom Bres, Sparrow Health System
Gretchen Cochran, Innovation & Jobs editor, may be reached here.
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