What is Community Connect?
Community Connect is Essentia Health's offer to extend our Epic electronic health record (EHR) platform to independent practices and hospitals.This comprehensive EHR provides all the software tools, system integration, support, and training needed to deliver high quality, integrated care efficiently.

• EpicCare Ambulatory and/or Inpatient EHR application
• Integrated applications for registrations, scheduling and billing
• Integrated Lab and radiology interfaces
• Electronic prescription capabilities

What is Epic?
Epic is a privately held, employee-owned healthcare software company founded in 1979 and based in Verona, Wisconsin. Their EpicCare System is the premier Electronic Health Record system on the market today. KLAS, the most respected vendor survey in healthcare, has ranked EpicCare as the #1 Ambulatory EMR for the past 12 consecutive years. Approximately 130 million patients are in EpicCare which means nearly 40% of the U.S. population has its medical information stored in an Epic digital record. There are over 150,000 providers using Epic daily in the nations top national health systems such as Cleveland Clinic, Kaiser Permanente, the Mayo Clinic, Geisinger Health System, and Essentia Health.

What is EnCompass?
EnCompass is the Essentia Health name for the integrated electronic health record within our organization.

What is the cost for Essentia Community Connect?
Essentia Health uses a competitive incremental pricing model rate based on demographic data gathered in the initial assessment. This pricing model considers labor, licensing, and training expenses dependent on a number of variables and complies with the Stark exemption and Anti-Kickback Safe Harbor regulations when appropriate (laws set to expire December 2021).

Please fill out the Contact Us form to discuss pricing with a Community Connect Program representative.

Will Essentia Health or other physicians have access to affiliate practices billing or financial data?
No. Your patient and practice information is built in a secure separate service area.

Will Essentia Health or other physicians have access to affiliate practices patient data?
Patient’s exclusive to an affiliate's practice will only be accessible by the affiliate. Patients who receive care at Essentia Health and the affiliate site will have a shared record accessible by those involved in the patient's care.

Is Essentia Community Connect a certified EHR system?
This Complete EHR is 2011 compliant and has been certified by the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT®), an ONC-ATCB, in accordance with the applicable certification criteria for eligible providers and hospitals adopted by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. This certification does not represent an endorsement by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services or guarantee the receipt of incentive payments.

• Vendor Name: Epic, Certified: 9/30/2010
• Version: 2012
• Unique certification number or other specific product identification;
  
  • IP – CC-2014-574355-3; Dates certification issued: 1/30/13; 2/13/13; 8/12/13
  • Amb – CC-2014-574355-2; Dates certification issued: 2/6/13; 2/13/13; 8/12/13

IP – CC-2014-574355-3; Dates certification issued: 1/30/13; 2/13/13; 8/12/13
Amb – CC-2014-574355-2; Dates certification issued: 2/6/13; 2/13/13; 8/12/13
What security measures are place for Essentia Community Connect?
Essentia Health has implemented multiple layers of security to protect against unauthorized access to the system.
All data is encrypted as it passes over the internet.
Essentia utilizes role-based access which limits access to confidential information based on a required need to know.
System logging is implemented to record all system access events for auditing purposes.

Can I use Essentia Community Connect to meet Meaningful Use requirements?
To achieve meaningful use, a practice or hospital must adopt a certified EHR and use it in a meaningful manner to not only document care but also facilitate improved care. Essentia Community Connect is a certified EHR that your practice or organization will be responsible for using to document and report on Meaningful Use objectives and measures. Essentia Community Connect includes Epic reports to support the CMS reporting requirements.

Who will install and support Essentia Community Connect?
An Essentia Health implementation team supplemented with third party and Epic resources will be deployed to ensure rapid and complete implementation of the proposed applications. We follow a rigorous project management methodology to successfully implement efficiently and productively with experienced clinical, technical, and revenue/access professionals.

Essentia Health provides 24x7x365 support to Community Connect affiliates through a three-tier support model. The Essentia Health Help Desk is available 24x7 to manage incidents and support requests. Calls that cannot be resolved by the Help Desk are passed to second level support for trouble shooting and resolution. All applications and technology areas are staffed 24x7 by on-call professionals.

The Essentia Community Connect program is built on affiliate driven first line of defense which establishes and maintains affiliate "super-users" related to core applications and technologies deployed.

Will I be able to access patient information from my previous system?
This process is negotiable upon review of the existing system. If the patient has been seen at Essentia Health, the Essentia Health patient data will be available for the first office visit.