Innovative New Epic Modules: Cheers, Garden Plot, and Best Care for My Patient

A sign of a quality EHR application is that the company refuses to rest on its laurels—and that perfectly describes Epic Systems. They’ve recently launched two new modules and are at the pre-launch stage of a third one, so we thought we’d share insights into all three of them for your healthcare organization.

Epic Cheers

Debuting at HIMSS 2022 in Orlando, Florida on March 14-18, Epic Cheers is a new CRM system with robust capabilities. At a high level, this module will help consumers who are seeking care while streamlining the intake process. Epic Cheers will make it easier for patients to access direct care and then remain connected to their healthcare providers even when they’re not inside of a doctor’s office or hospital.

Healthcare organizations, meanwhile, will gain deep and transparent insights into the populations they serve because of how the module integrates tens of thousands of data points for in-depth, laser-targeted visibility. Insights provided through this module will allow facilities to proactively prepare for patient needs, overall, and then guide individual ones in enriched ways.

More specifically, Epic Cheers can mesh with your healthcare organization’s phone system. Based on the call records of a patient, the system will automatically suggest relevant conversation topics to address. They can include, but aren’t limited to, asking if the person would like to schedule a COVID vaccine or booster if that’s applicable.

When patients use the Epic MyChart app to schedule appointments, review test results, and communicate with their doctors, Epic Cheers creates targeted messaging for an individual patient. These communications are proactively sent out in a series whenever a certain kind of care is needed, and these messages can be delivered through phone calls, emails, and texts. This is one of the features that’s designed to keep patients engaged when not in a healthcare facility.

Epic Cheers can give healthcare organizations a competitive advantage as they serve patients in proactively personalized ways. Plus, because only a few dozen organizations are using this module so far, this can position your healthcare facilities in the forefront.

The Epic Systems team was inspired to create this CRM application during COVID-19 to help healthcare faculties that needed to provide quality care to patients in an extremely difficult time. Epic Systems anticipates the use of Cheers to greatly ramp up over the next few years.

Epic Garden Plot

Epic Garden Plot is designed for independent medical groups with a desire to use Epic’s powerful EHR system, and implementation of this SaaS began in May 2022. This newly released module will allow smaller medical groups to create and leverage holistic patient records to enhance patient care and streamline processes at the healthcare facilities. With this new module, doctors in independent medical groups can benefit from a ready-to-use version of the software in ways that are targeted for their size and usage.

This module was created, Epic Systems says, for medical groups that can’t use their Community Connect program to extend their Epic usage to nearby groups of medical professionals. Created in 2007, Community Connect has allowed medical professionals to access Epic software without purchasing the infrastructure themselves—and about 40,000 providers currently use Community Connect to share their patient’s records with area hospitals. A key difference between Community Connect and the new module is that Epic Garden Plot will allow independent medical groups to work directly with Epic.

Epic Systems was inspired to develop this module when the American Medical Association (AMA) announced that nearly fifty percent of physicians in the United States were part of independent medical groups. Epic realized that these professionals needed to have access to high quality technology to manage their practices, stay in compliance, and provide excellent care for their communities. Since Community Connect won’t work for all of them, they designed this robust new module.

Through Epic Garden Plot, physicians can have convenient access to relevant third parties while benefiting from the Epic network with minimal overhead. Because Epic hosts the modules and provides updates, this frees healthcare providers to spend less time on managing their technology and more time on patient care.

If this module is of interest, Epic notes that it is available for primary care and specialty care groups that have more than forty providers.

Epic Best Care for My Patient

Epic Best Care for My Patient is coming soon, slated to go live early 2023. This module—which has been in development for two years now—will allow healthcare providers to seamlessly find best care practices that use real-world data to benefit their patients.

This module will be populated via Cosmos, a dataset that contains more than 135 million de-identified patient records. Through these massive data inputs, Epic Best Care for My Patient will conveniently provide in-depth analytical information for healthcare providers to enhance decision making and patient care. Medical professionals can leverage this big data and shape it to an individual person and circumstance.

Benefits of Epic Best Care for My Patient’s linkage with Cosmos include how quickly medical professionals can search the database and find precisely what they’re looking for. Plus, Epic is working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to continue to make the database as clear and representative of the United States population as possible, so doctors can use information gleaned with confidence.

When this module is live, two types of medical professionals will benefit significantly from its capabilities: this will be an outstanding tool for medical researchers as well as for clinicians who focus on optimally diagnosing and treating patients.

Other Epic Modules for Your Healthcare Organization

These three modules have joined (or will be joining) the list of powerful Epic applications, which also includes these:

• Clinical modules
• Patient access modules
• Revenue cycle modules
• Managed care modules
• Analytics and business intelligence modules
• Data warehousing modules
• Access modules
• Specialty and ancillary modules

What a healthcare organization will use in their Epic EHR systems will depend upon many factors, including the size and number of the facilities, the healthcare services being provided, and organizational challenges and goals, among others.

Just like with any technology or service, it can make sense to regularly audit what you’re using (and for what purpose). This is true whether you’re using Epic in your facilities already or you’re considering a switch to Epic.

As you analyze your situation, ask questions like these: What is working optimally? What could use a refresher? What technology gaps exist? What modules can fill them? If you’d like help with this process from experienced Epic consultants, just let us know.

Maximizing Your Epic Implementations

After choosing new modules to include in your Epic system, it’s then time to integrate them into your current technology in optimal ways and then training end users for the most efficient, cost effective, and streamlined use. HealthTECH Resources can augment your IT team in specialized ways to help you get the most out of your technology and to reach your return on investment goals more quickly.

Our deep and wide network of EHR specialists are available as consultants, contractor-to-hire professionals, and permanent placements—and they can often be on site in 48 hours, even when you have stringent requirements.

Experts in our network can collaborate and work alongside your in-house team in these ways and more:

• Overall project management: Implementing new modules can involve numerous steps, and it can help to have an experienced Epic project manager to oversee human resources, financial considerations, and more.
• Implementation, optimization, and integration: Consultants can facilitate the creation of goals and timelines, breaking them down into tasks and deadlines while staying within your project’s scope and budget. Because Epic is so robust, modules can be tailored in multiple ways to dovetail with your healthcare organization’s processes and workflows—with experts in our network doing so with finesse, working around potential pitfalls and maximizing opportunities.
• Process documentation and training programs: Professionals who are well versed in capturing documentation will do so in user-friendly ways that can be used in training curriculums. Professional trainers will work with your facility to create uniquely interactive educational programs that inform and engage end users in role-based ways.
• Go-live and post-go-live support: Once modules are integrated into your technology, they can become part of your live Epic system. EHR experts will test the modules before they go live and otherwise check off to-do list items for an optimal crossover. They can also offer post-live support to assist your IT team and end users with the new technologies.

To discuss your specific staff augmentation needs, please contact us online or call (602) 903-7961. We’re here to help you integrate Epic Garden Plot or Epic Cheers—and we’ll be ready to help when Epic Best Care for My Patient is available. HealthTECH Resources takes a proactive approach to growing our professional network—paving the way for your future needs.