On Jan. 27, 2017, the Partners eCare Group 3A sites (North Shore Medical Center, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, Ophthalmic Consultants of Boston and North Shore Physicians Group) went live with Epic. This event brought us another step closer to clinicians and staff having access to one system for all patient records from anywhere within the Partners network. For our patients this means they are closer to having a single health record and billing statement from wherever they receive care within the Partners Healthcare System (PHS).

Along with this go-live for Group 3A, a new Epic functionality was introduced to Partners eCare called “Leave of Absence” (LOA). This functionality is initiated in Epic when you need to “pause” a patient’s admission in the event that your patient needs to leave BWH for a short period of time but is expected to return to the same bed at BWH. For example, your patient may go on LOA for a brief visit to another Partners care facility for a specialized procedure not available at the BWH, or your patient may go on LOA for urgent personal reasons. Benefits of this new functionality include:

• LOA avoids the need to complete a discharge and then document a new admission when the patient returns to BWH.
• During the LOA, all orders are placed on “hold” until the patient returns to BWH.
• During the LOA, all required clinical documentation is suspended.
• If the patient is sent to another Partners’ site for a procedure while on LOA, all of the clinical documentation from that facility will be easily visible in the patients PeC record.
• Clear notification of the LOA status in the patient’s record is visible to users across
  the system.

We expect additional PHS sites to go-live with Epic during 2017 and we anticipate enhancements to the system with each implementation.