Albany Med Reduces Legacy EHR Support Costs During Epic Migration

Albany Med Health System, Albany, New York

About the Client

Albany Med Health System is the largest not-for-profit healthcare provider serving northeastern New York and western New England. As the region’s only academic medical center, Albany Med provides easy access to highly specialized services while still delivering community-based care to its patient population — 2.8 million people across 25 counties. Staffed with 1,642 beds, Albany Med administers clinical services across Albany Medical Center, Albany Medical College, Columbia Memorial Health, Glens Falls Hospital, and Saratoga Hospital. With over 100 specialty areas, additional services span four ambulatory surgery centers, 13 imaging centers, 16 urgent care clinics, two renal dialysis facilities, a specialty pharmacy, and the Albany Med Physicians network.

Project Details

Prior to its transition to a comprehensive, system-wide Epic EHR instance, Albany Med sought an outsourced legacy support partner to ensure cost-effective EHR changeover through agile staffing. This engagement was originally delivered by Stoltenberg Consulting, now a Med Tech Solutions (MTS) Company, to gain a smooth hospital EHR system transition with 3x Best in KLAS legacy system support.

Med Tech Solutions’ initiative began in the summer of 2022 with support spanning across Albany Medical Center, Saratoga Hospital and Columbia Memorial Hospital. Throughout the Epic migration project, MTS’s legacy support team was responsible for day-to-day support, as well as the feeding and maintenance for both clinical and financial legacy applications, including the Oracle Cerner Soarian suite, Allscripts Practice Management, MEDITECH and PACS systems (GE/Phillips).

Strategic EHR Support Throughout Epic Migration

As a seamless extension of Albany Med’s existing IT teams and internal processes, MTS’s expert consultants provided 24/7 coverage to effectively mitigate end-user problems and reduce critical system issues across all user types including clinicians, support staff, and the business office. This allowed internal staff to focus on new Epic system projects without worrying about service degradation or staff burnout. Through its cross-specialty staffing model, MTS significantly reduced Albany Med’s projected FTE need, decreasing legacy spend while still maintaining the same, if not enhanced, levels of support. Additional hospital EHR system support spanned user setup and reporting services, upgrade maintenance, conversion assistance, and supplemental Epic support as needed. Throughout the engagement, Med Tech Solutions’ team maintained full SLA adherence to facilitate an on-schedule Epic roll out.

Key Project Deliverables:

• Provided operational support to 11,000+ end users across three hospitals, including support for over 2,000 primary affiliated physicians
• Med Tech Solutions’ team efficiently operated with 8.5 FTEs, reducing internal support allocation by 77.6%
• 18+ legacy systems and coordinating applications supported
• Overall reduction in the total monthly ticket volume for supported applications