ANN ARBOR, MI – An information technology overhaul planned for the University of Michigan Health System will affect care providers and administrators in every U-M hospital, clinic and office, according to officials.

UMHS officials recently signed a contract with Verona, Wis.-based Epic Systems for the first stage of a multi-year effort to replace and/or augment the hundreds of clinical, research, quality and business applications that were developed and purchased by UMHS over the past two decades.

"Together with Epic, we will continue the U-M Health System's history of leading information technology use by integrating this system across every venue for patient care. This has been done by very few other medical centers in the world," said Jocelyn DeWitt, PhD, chief information officer, U-M Hospitals and Health Centers, who co-sponsors the new project with Andrew Rosenberg, MD, chief medical information officer for UMHS, and other UMHS leaders.

The new effort will replace and unify the old systems and make new functions possible – including online "portals" for patients and referring physicians. It will also allow UMHS to meet the federal government's goals for meaningful use of electronic health records and be ready to meet the federal deadline to meet the new ICD-10 medical coding system, said officials.

Over the next few months, UMHS and Epic staff will carry out a detailed analysis of all the clinical and administrative processes that currently rely on IT or paper, and outline the ways in which researchers could leverage improved access to UMHS clinical information. Officials say the new system will allow researchers to automatically identify patients who might meet the criteria for the studies they are conducting, and contact them to see if they would be willing to volunteer.

After this first stage is complete, UMHS will begin the process of transforming its outpatient clinics and treatment centers, its coding and billing operations, its scheduling and registration systems, and its emergency department to run Epic systems almost exclusively. If all goes well, a new contract to convert systems in the hospitals, pharmacies and central medical record operation will follow, officials said. Many smaller systems used in highly specialized areas will also be able to transition to Epic, beginning mid-decade.

"Working together, with an aggressive timetable, I am confident we can make this transformation happen, for the benefit of our patients and our community," says DeWitt.