EPIC

Seeing the Whole Picture

EPIC BRIDGES DENTAL AND MEDICAL HEALTH INFORMATION

With the adoption of the Epic electronic health record (EHR) system, the College of Dentistry has access to a single, integrated EHR utilized by the entire UK

Healthcare enterprise. Epic provides the college’s dental clinics seamless access to established medical information never before experienced. Providers, students, and staff involved in supporting dental care will significantly benefit from this new integrated medical-dental record, as will dental patients.

In December 2019, college leadership announced the decision for UKCD to transition to Epic in conjunction with UK HealthCare’s move to the system. Transitioning at this time allowed the college to provide more input during the process and benefit from substantial savings on new equipment and technical support during the project.

Despite the pandemic, nearly 150 hospitals implemented Epic during 2020. Organizations noted the vendor’s deep integration and stability among key reasons for adoption. The vendor’s culture of “yes, if” rather than “no, because,” and efforts to further enhance its product to better support

healthcare providers and patients is also helping to fuel the company’s growth. System adoption rates, reliability, and the company’s commitment to the future, fit well with the college’s aim to further embrace and support digital dentistry workflows throughout dental clinics.

“The college is very pleased and excited about joining with the entire UK HealthCare enterprise in this move to Epic. This medical software is being used by many healthcare systems throughout the country because it is very powerful and comprehensive. We are presently experiencing the learning curve, which initially is frustrating. However, every day our knowledge about the software increases and we are seeing the tremendous advantages, not only for our college, but how it opens our access to a patient’s entire medical record. This transition will help us be better healthcare providers in the future,” shares UKCD Dean, Dr. Jeff Okeson.

Appointment scheduling in Epic for dental clinics and UK HealthCare began in late May 2021, while complete system go-live occurred in early June 2021. An enormous effort involving Epic representatives, UK HealthCare officials, and college staff and faculty was required to meet these two launch dates. For over a year leading up to the transition, college representatives attended numerous meetings each week to help ensure the system would support clinic workflows, student education needs, and patient dental care and services. Hundreds of hours were dedicated to merging and verifying duplicate patient records across various systems in UK HealthCare and the college. Staff, faculty, and college learners completed various training sessions and workshops prior to receiving access to the live system.

The dental portion of Epic, or Wisdom, is currently utilized by some 60 organizations, including academic institutions and dental support organizations (DSOs), who offer hundreds of clinics the opportunity to connect to Wisdom.

“Epic is sweeping the nation among healthcare organizations. As a result, Wisdom is a real area of focus in terms of growing utilization and support,” shared Dr. Emily Winfrey, chief of UKCD Division of Comprehensive Care.

“The college is very pleased and excited about joining with the entire UK

HealthCare enterprise in this move to

Epic. This medical software is being used by many healthcare systems throughout the country because it is very powerful and comprehensive. “

“In Epic, we have already seen scenarios where students have patients who may have been poor historians. Now students can look back and see that their patient is much more complex than they knew. Even if a patient is not with UK HealthCare, if they are seeing a physician at another institution using Epic, we can still pull their information.”

As a faculty member deeply involved in the college’s transition to Epic, Dr. Winfrey was invited to observe Epic’s Dentistry Steering Board meetings and was later elected to be a voting member of the board. The board consists of 12 voting members representing 12 unique organizations, ranging from dental schools and DSOs to Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) and community/research hospitals. The board’s goal is to collaborate to cultivate solutions and drive the future of the dental experience in Epic and patient care. Members meet monthly to discuss topics such as workflows, best practices, and possible gaps to be addressed in the foundation build of Wisdom. Organizations can customize their install of Epic. However, as with any system customizations, potential challenges may be experienced following regular system updates should groups pursue adjustments to the foundation build of the system. Avoiding this potential issue is another reason Epic is committed to continually improving its system foundation.

“At Epic, we understand that oral-systemic health is one of the largest predictors of a patient’s overall health and believe that Wisdom is the future of the Electronic Dental Record, not just due to its own functionality, but also its integration with the Epic medical chart,” shares Justin Shafer, Epic Dentistry Specialty Lead. “We continually work across our community, as well as with our Steering Board, to gather feedback and data that drives the content of our quarterly system upgrades, and have a team of 12 software developers, over 20 implementers, and over 50 quality assurance (QA) and long-term technical support folks committed to helping the Wisdom community.”

Before transitioning to Epic, the college’s last significant health record change, in 2006, involved shifting from paper charts to an electronic health record. Former Division of Comprehensive Care Team Leader Dr. Tom McConnell shares, “It was the first move to an electronic health record, so there was a general lack of experience with chairside computers.” Initially, clinics continued utilizing paper charts in their workflows and relied on select features of the software. Over time, clinics migrated to the system entirely, retiring paper charts.

While commending the college’s previous software on supporting dental education, Dr. Winfrey stressed why making a change now made sense. “As students are becoming more tech-savvy, as our patients are becoming much more complex, and with the growing acceptance of the role that dentistry plays in a patient’s overall health and their medical wellness, we need a more integrated system in our clinics.”

“So many times, we’ve had discussions with students about practice opportunities. When we ask about systems the office uses, many say it’s nothing like what we used at UKCD. Now, coming out of college after using Wisdom in Epic, it should be a better transition for our students as the interface will be more like what they will use in private practice,” added Winfrey.

Post-launch, the college is focused on adjusting training processes to better demonstrate patient scenarios experienced in the college’s clinics and improving processes to best support dental education, patient care, and research efforts, making adjustments where needed to best utilize Epic fully. With so much information potentially available in a patient record, learning to use tools in Epic to filter out “noise” and focus on information pertinent to the patient’s oral health care will be essential.

“In Epic, we have already seen scenarios where students have patients who may have been poor historians. Now students can look back and see that their patient is much more complex than they knew. Even if a patient is not with UK HealthCare, if they are seeing a physician at another institution using Epic, we can still pull their information.”