Woman’s Healthcare facility is evaluating four proposals from Louisiana-primarily based well being care systems interested in partnering with the clinic on an affiliation that would empower cost sharing on gear and technologies, exclusively, the dear EPIC healthcare records system that a developing quantity of providers are employing and people are demanding.
In June, Woman’s issued a broadly worded request for information and facts regionally and nationally, in search of proposals describing what this kind of an affiliation may seem like.
4 hospital programs, all in condition, submitted responses, Woman’s CEO Dr. Barbara Griffith states.
“There are multiple devices, regionally and nationally, who are using the most innovative technology in electronic health-related records, which most people consider is EPIC,” she claims. “So we need to both of those comprehend who would want to share their technology with us and then evaluate which organization is the ideal cultural in shape and exceptional lover to aid us advance our technology.”
Woman’s issued the procurement as an RFI, rather than a certain request for proposals, simply because the board and administration wanted to continue to keep the approach open up-ended and solicit a selection of artistic methods, Griffith suggests.
The clinic retained countrywide well being treatment consulting company Deloitte to assist draft the RFI in late March, almost right away following the premier independent OB/GYN team follow in the market—Louisiana Women’s Healthcare—announced it was being obtained by Ochsner.
The LWH announcement despatched shock waves as a result of the Baton Rouge health-related group and especially at Woman’s, in which LWH occupies three flooring of the hospital’s Physician’s Place of work Building and performs much more than 62% of all deliveries.
Though LWH ideas to carry on providing toddlers at Woman’s, the deal has ramifications for the competitive regional market, in which Ochsner—the biggest overall health care procedure in Louisiana and largest private employer in the state—is making an attempt to aggressively mature its footprint. By proudly owning LWH, Ochsner proficiently has a romance with LWH’s a lot more than 70,000 people.
LWH officers have mentioned getting entry to EPIC was their key cause for becoming a member of with Ochsner. Woman’s, which is a fairly smaller hospital with 165 beds, explored obtaining entry to EPIC but finally concluded that at far more than $200 million in excess of the upcoming 7 years, it was much too pricey.
“The engineering for wellbeing treatment organizations is amazingly pricey and as a wellbeing care organization it is sensible to look at doing the job with many others in order to share their technological know-how and manage the cost,” Griffith says. “So we are continuing to go after our strategic strategy but are taking into thing to consider that a massive element of the doctors and individuals who will produce listed here are served by a greater system’s technologies applications.”
Griffith declines to title the 4 methods that responded to the RFI, but sources familiar with the course of action say Ochsner is between them.
Ochsner CEO Warner Thomas declines to comment on irrespective of whether Ochsner submitted a proposal to Woman’s but claims, hypothetically, “if we were being invited to lover with Woman’s, undoubtedly we would be intrigued.”
No matter what the form of a foreseeable future affiliation may perhaps in the end glimpse like, Griffith says Woman’s is not for sale and is not seeking for a buyer—just a spouse to help it make investments in point out-of-the-artwork technologies.
Deloitte is serving to the medical center examine the responses to the RFI.
“It is a intricate method to assess just about every 1 and fully comprehend the implications of that preference and ascertain who is the finest healthy for Woman’s,” Griffith says.
The healthcare facility hopes to make a conclusion during the 3rd quarter.
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