Dive Brief:

Tennessee-based Erlanger Health announced a $91-million contract with Epic Systems to upgrade its electronic record system.

This marks the hospital's most significant investment in several years and will cost an additional $97 million to operate over the next decade.

The upgrade will add 100 new jobs and streamline the hospital's current fragmented system.

Dive Insight:

Another big win for Epic, and a resounding one—HIStalk reports that the hospital's selection committee, which has both clinical and operational leaders on it, voted for Judy Faulkner's product 28 to two over Cerner.

As we reported yesterday with regards to the launch of Parters' $1.2-billion Epic rollout: Erlanger probably didn't have a choice. Despite interoperability concerns that plague the vendor's reputation, it's still arguably the best—only?—game in town for providers of a certain size. And with CMS forging ahead with meaningful use regulations, hospitals don't have a "wait and see" option.

"We are concerned that CMS is trying to force providers to move toward meaningful use of EHRs at a pace that is too fast and impossible to meet," Catholic Health Initiatives said in a comment on the agency's stage 3 proposal.

Kevin Spiegel, CEO of Erlanger, said: "We're laying the foundation for our future. And we really can't take this hospital's enhanced quality, patient safety and patient care to the next level without significantly investing in IT infrastructure."

Want to read more? You may enjoy this story on the Partners launch of its $1.2B Epic EHR.