Mullica Hill, N.J.-based Inspira Health will save money with a new $120 million Epic EHR through lower annual technology costs and improved revenue capture, the health system’s COO told Becker’s.
The investment, spread over 10 years, will allow the health system to turn off nearly 100 third-party applications, leading to monetary savings even though Epic will cost more annually than Inspira Health’s current EHR, according to COO Warren Moore. He also estimates Epic will increase revenue by 1-7% through improved registration and billing and collections.
“So we believe there’ll be some financial lift there, and then it’s hard to quantify, but the amount of time our clinicians will save is almost priceless,” Mr. Moore said. “And then with [Epic] generative AI running through the entire system, we believe future savings will be extraordinary from an efficiency standpoint.”
The $1.35-billion health system plans to go live with Epic across its four hospitals and roughly 80 ambulatory sites in July 2026 after starting its implementation in June of this year. About 400 of the organization’s over 8,000 employees are dedicated to the project, including 100 Epic analysts who have had to spend time at the EHR vendor’s Wisconsin headquarters for certification. About 60 Epic staffers also visit Inspira once a month to help with the build.
Inspira Health started exploring a new EHR after receiving feedback from clinicians, staff and even patients that they would prefer Epic. The health system was also experiencing inefficiencies and lots of after-hours documentation work (aka “pajama time”) with its current platforms.
“The pace of change with Epic and the enhancements with Epic have become extraordinary,” Mr. Moore said. “And so honestly, it became a very clear decision for us that it was the right choice.”
The move will also allow Inspira to more easily connect to Camden, N.J.-based Cooper University Health Care, a clinical partner that is also on Epic.
The health system plans to adopt Epic’s whole suite of AI products, with the costs worked into the 10-year contract. Inspira uses Microsoft’s DAX Copilot for clinical documentation now but Mr. Moore expects the platform to “eventually become one” with Epic’s coming AI scribe (which will incorporate Microsoft technology).
“We are one of the first systems that was able to, from a timing perspective, purchase the entire AI suite, which is a pretty new process with Epic,” Mr. Moore explained. “The AI suite that exists now — they’re improving it every day. By the time we go live, it’ll be pretty robust. They already have about 160 different applications, where they’ve shown, working with other systems, where they’ve been able to show significant improvements.”
Overall, Inspira went “all in,” Mr. Moore said, purchasing all of what Epic had to offer except for any service lines it doesn’t have. The EHR will be one of Inspira Health’s top five investments over the next three years, but Mr. Moore expects dividends well into the future, including reduced clinician documentation time and improved interoperability with other Epic customers.
The only challenges Mr. Moore foresees with the install are potentially some disruptions in the first few months after go-live, but the health system is taking steps to mitigate those and “give our staff the grace, if you will, to get through that period,” he said.
He is also looking forward to MyChart’s single sign-on and AI assistant features, as well as generative AI to guide clinical decision-making.
“Quite honestly, if you look five years from now, this will be transformative for our communities,” he said. “One of the biggest challenges I’ve seen in my career is trying to make everyone — clinicians, patients — make sense of all the information that is out there but never gets married together. It’s never analyzed together. And so I truly believe we’ll be able to make a big, big gain in really helping our communities improve their health and well-being.”
The post Inside Inspira Health’s $120M Epic gamble appeared first on Becker’s Hospital Review | Healthcare News & Analysis.
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