In a rare show of collaboration among market competitors, health systems across Louisiana have joined forces to launch MyChart Central, a new Epic feature that allows patients to securely access their medical records through a single, unified login — no matter which participating health system they visit.
The coordinated activation, announced Oct. 9, marked the first statewide rollout of MyChart Central in the nation. Participating organizations include New Orleans-based Ochsner Health; Baton Rouge-based Baton Rouge General; New Orleans-based LCMC Health; Hammond-based North Oaks Health System; Baton Rouge-based Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System; Covington-based St. Tammany Parish Hospital; Lake Charles-based Lake Charles Memorial Health System; Houma-based Terrebonne General Health System; and Baton Rouge-based Woman’s Hospital.
The initiative began not in a boardroom, but in the hallways of Epic’s annual User Group Meeting in Verona, Wis.
“We were all sitting together at UGM talking about what Epic was doing in Madison,” Will Landry, senior vice president and CIO of Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System, told Becker’s. “We all kind of just started asking, ‘When are we going live with this [MyChart Central]?’ That’s when we realized we were all on similar timelines and thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if we did this jointly?’”
That impromptu conversation sparked a statewide collaboration among CIOs who typically compete for patients and market share.
“We hadn’t really done this before — our CIOs have been having more conversations in the last couple of years, and we thought it’d be a great idea to get our teams together,” Mr. Landry said. “It’s been a great collaboration. We’re all really excited about what we can do next.”
Bennett Cheramie, vice president and CIO of Baton Rouge General, added that friendly competition actually helped bring the group closer.
“There was a competitive feature, like, ‘Who’s going to go first?’” he told Becker’s. “But it sparked some great conversation around how we can better serve our communities. Everybody wanted to lead the pack — and that energy turned into something meaningful.”
For Amy Trainor, CIO of Ochsner Health, the project symbolized a shift in how Louisiana’s healthcare leaders view one another.
“We were all sitting in the same meeting when the idea came up, and we just started having fun with it — we even called ourselves Team Crawfish,” Ms. Trainor told Becker’s. “Over the last year, we’ve really been trying to collaborate more. What can we learn from each other? How can we better serve our patients collaboratively? This was a great opportunity to do that.”
David Singer, CIO of LCMC Health, said the launch reflects a broader mindset change.
“Some things aren’t a competition,” he told Becker’s. “Some things are just what’s good for the patients. Partnering with these other health systems is the first example of many that I think we’ll do in the future.”
Michael Watkins, COO of North Oaks Health System, highlighted the operational side of collaboration.
“This group was kind enough to reach out to us before all of this went live, so we got to kind of alternate together and I really appreciate it,” he told Becker’s.
Mr. Watkins also noted that while MyChart Central unifies access, each system retains individual patient preferences.
“Even with the central portal, patients can still have separate preferences from organization to organization — all of our teams program things a little differently, and that functionality is intact.”
Together, the participating health systems represent a vast majority of care delivered in Louisiana. More than 2.5 million residents already use MyChart to view test results, schedule appointments and message providers. Now, with MyChart Central, they can use one password-free login across multiple health systems, and their demographic information will sync automatically between records.
“If demographics are updated in David’s system — and we share a lot of the same geography — the other system will get those updates,” Ms. Trainor said. “That alone makes things easier for patients and for us. It’s a big win.”
Mr. Landry called the launch “a first giant step” in simplifying the digital experience.
“We’ve been talking about simplifying the digital experience for 15 years,” he said. “This is about giving patients and their families an easier, simpler digital experience, which is a shared goal across all of our organizations.”
Behind the scenes, teams from across Louisiana conducted joint testing to ensure the system worked seamlessly across multiple MyChart environments — an uncommon level of technical coordination.
“Epic really helped us organize cross-team testing,” Ms. Trainor said. “Our teams in New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Hammond all tested things together to make sure everything worked as designed. We don’t normally do that unless it’s a single-facility initiative, so this collaboration was something new — and hopefully the start of even more to come.”
The experience has already inspired discussions about aligning other aspects of the patient experience statewide, such as how health systems release clinical data and manage pediatric records.
“We’re patients too, and our family members go between these different organizations,” Mr. Landry said. “We want that experience to be consistent and better across the board.”
Mr. Singer agreed.
“We’re starting to think more about what’s best for Louisiana,” he said. “This is step one toward collaborating for what’s best for the patient — and it’s exciting to see.”
As Epic prepares to expand MyChart Central nationwide later this year, Louisiana’s “Team Crawfish” hopes their example can serve as a model for other states — proof that even competitors can come together when it’s in the patient’s best interest.
“We can’t minimize how powerful this collaboration was,” Ms. Trainor said. “This was about doing what’s right for patients — together.”
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