Health system’s Epic, Infor best-in-suite approach helps fix interoperability challenges

On the inpatient side, Faith Regional was using the Soarian electronic health record first developed by Siemens with a different system in its emergency department called ePowerDoc. In its clinics, it was using a NextGen EHR. On the financial side, meanwhile, the health system was using Cerner’s MedSeries 4 as well as Kronos for HR and payroll.

“Our clinicians weren’t necessarily happy with the EHR platforms that we were using,” said Brian Sterud, chief information officer at Faith Regional Health Services. “However, we were under contract for some time. We looked at implementing the Soarian Financials package a few years back to replace Med Series 4 as it was an antiquated product with little support and a diminishing user base.”

But in 2014 it was announced that Cerner was acquiring Siemens’ health IT business, which included Soarian. While Cerner had committed to a number of years where it would continue to develop the product, Faith Regional Health Services felt it was the right time to evaluate a change.