Universal Health Services Adding Oracle Health's EHR to its Behavioral Health Facilities

20 July 2023

Universal Health Services  a leading provider of hospital and healthcare services, is expanding the Oracle Health electronic health record (EHR) across its broad network of behavioral health facilities. UHS acute care hospitals have used Oracle Health's technology for a decade. With this expansion, the organization now has access to a single, unified EHR in acute and behavioral health facilities across the United States to better inform care decisions and help improve patient safety practices.

"With our focus on patient safety and providing superior care, access to more complete and accurate health information across the care continuum will better inform care decisions, enhance health outcomes, improve medical behavioral integration, and ultimately support value-based care," said Matt Peterson, president, Behavioral Health Division, UHS. "There is a historical lack of health record digitization in the behavioral health sector. We are leading the charge in modernizing our technology and this is an exciting horizon as we further pursue total patient care. We're also seeing a rapidly growing number of patients seeking behavioral care, with many in severe situations and needing high acuity care. Teaming with technology leaders like Oracle Health helps us innovate so we can meet patients where they are and expand services to areas that are currently underserved."

With more than 200 behavioral health facilities across the United States, UHS behavioral health providers offer inpatient, outpatient, and residential treatment for children, adolescents, adults, and elderly.

Five facilities have gone live this year, with more underway and continuing across the UHS behavioral health facilities over the next few years.

By using Oracle Health's EHR across its acute and behavioral health facilities, UHS care teams can more easily and securely share information to enable a more collaborative treatment approach and to help improve continuity of patient care. UHS patients also benefit from having access to a portable, digitized record that can travel with them from one care setting to another and encompasses both their behavioral and physical health history in a single record.

Oracle's behavioral-health specific EHR content and functionality was further customized by UHS during the initial rollout to help clinicians gain a more comprehensive view of a patient's record, better inform care decisions, and enhance safety practices. Their customizations are now being offered to other Oracle customers via Crossings Healthcare Solutions, a subsidiary of UHS. This approach is similar to how Crossings has long assisted traditional acute care organizations to optimize their EHR.

"UHS is at the forefront of total patient care, and digitizing behavioral health information in its EHR is an important step toward integrating its healthcare practices to enable better caregiver experiences and improved patient outcomes," said Travis Dalton, executive vice president, Oracle Health. "Building on a decade of successful collaboration, this expanded relationship between UHS and Oracle Health takes a significant step toward realizing the goal of seamless health information exchange."

 

Source:prnewswire.com