From “Patchwork Quilt” to Revenue Cycle Integration

Before Henry Ford Health System made the switch from their 25-year-old homegrown EHR to Epic, their revenue cycle was described as a “patchwork quilt” with no fewer than 20 different systems for registration and billing. Now, in the years since their Epic implementation, Henry Ford has seen an aggregate savings of $167 million.

According to Henry Ford’s VP of Clinical Transformation Geoff Patterson, it takes more than governance and resources. As part of the move to Epic, revenue cycle managers met with IT regularly to discuss what was working and identify high-opportunity areas such as reducing hospital A/R days.

Henry Ford was a HIMSS Davies Award winner in 2017, and at the 2018 HIMSS conference, they discussed the strategies they used to get the most value from their EHR. Throughout their organization-wide switch to Epic’s integrated system, leaders focused on specific areas with a high potential for improvement such as a more seamless revenue cycle, a more robust data warehouse, and better standardization of care.

“We were able to show a true return on investment and show that our strategy worked,” Patterson said.

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