Epic Grand Central is the foundational module within the Epic EHR system that serves as the central hub for patient access and hospital admissions. It manages patient flow from the moment of registration and scheduling through bed management and discharge.
By providing a unified platform for administrative tasks, Grand Central minimizes manual errors, enhances operational efficiency, and improves the patient experience.
Understanding ADT Systems
An admission-discharge-transfer (ADT) system is one of the most crucial hospital workflows within your hospital information system (HIS), regardless of the size, location, or specialty of your organization. ADT systems are responsible for tracking patient stays from the time a patient is admitted until they are discharged or transferred to another facility.
An ADT system not only tracks patients throughout their entire care lifecycle but also supports electronic medical record information for patients, including their names, ages, medical record numbers, and contact information. By storing all patient information in one system, records can be easily shared or transferred as needed, providing other organizations or facilities with access to crucial data that can sometimes be the difference between life and death for a patient.
The ADT solution in Epic provides the tools and resources needed for users to optimize patient tracking activities, acting as a sort of “Grand Central Station” for patient data, including location tracking, patient transport, and bed planning across organizations.
What is Epic Grand Central?
The Grand Central Epic module is the enterprise ADT solution housed in the Epic system. Grand Central provides the necessary tools to properly track and manage patient stays, from pre-admission paperwork and procedures through discharge or transfer to another facility.
This comprehensive patient tracking system offers a few key activities to help system end users better manage patient data and track patient stays in real time:
- Patient transport
- Multi-facility bed planning and management
- Patient and facility location tracking
- Housekeeping
Additionally, Epic provides built-in utilization reports and analytics, making it even easier to track activity progress and completion. The Epic Grand Central ADT system was designed to streamline patient care operations and enhance patient management activities across the entire patient lifecycle within any given organization or facility.
Key Advantages of ADT Systems (like Grand Central)
An ADT event occurs whenever a patient moves from one care setting to another, whether that involves being admitted to a hospital, transferred to a long-term care facility, or discharged to their home. Due to the numerous guidelines and rules governing the movement of physical patients and their corresponding medical records, a system is necessary to help physicians and other care providers track important patient information.
ADT systems simplify record-keeping and patient-tracking processes, and in turn, provide physicians with better insight into care lifecycles, helping to increase system productivity. Here are a few of the key benefits of using an admission-discharge-transfer system like Epic Grand Central in your organization:
Improvement of Patient Care (and Satisfaction)
The Grand Central module provides enhanced organizational and maintenance practices, improving the availability and accessibility of patient information and medical history for healthcare providers and other staff members.
With better data management and improved utilization of comprehensive patient records and medical history, healthcare providers can improve their quality of care and overall patient satisfaction. For example, if a patient with an extensive medical history or a long list of allergies is admitted to the hospital, physicians with Grand Central have more immediate access to such information, and they will even receive a notification to alert them of the patient’s history.
This way, physicians can view medical records, assess the issue at hand, and provide reliable treatment plans — all while upholding quality and timeliness standards.
More Reliable Patient Data
When patients are admitted, an ADT system begins collecting patient information automatically and creates a workflow that both tracks and stores that information in a unified system. The automated nature of admission-discharge-transfer systems also provides up-to-date patient information that is both timely and reliable. And, the context provided by improved analytics and insights, including patient notes and medical history, enhances the reliability of patient information.
With better access to and more reliable data, physicians can make more informed decisions regarding patient diagnosis and treatment, ultimately improving patient satisfaction.
Integration Between Systems
Connections between hospitals, healthcare organizations, and other care facilities are important in optimizing patient flow and maximizing the efficiency of patient care processes.
Setting up ADT interfaces that enable systems to work together notifies system users of any patient changes and provides them with access to more helpful information regarding patient stays. By having more access to important information, healthcare providers can make better decisions that help improve the quality of care and reduce hospital readmissions in the long run.
As is the case with many other assigned Epic module integrations, Grand Central has pre-built capabilities that allow it to seamlessly connect to different parts of the Epic system. This way, Epic applications, like Grand Central, Prelude, and Cadence, can work together to provide the highest quality of patient care by optimizing system operations and keeping all data stored in a single, unified system.
Epic Grand Central vs. Prelude: What’s the Difference?
Now that you’ve read a little more about Epic Grand Central and admission-discharge-transfer systems in general, let’s chat about the ways Grand Central differs from Epic Prelude.
What Does Epic Prelude Do?
Epic Prelude is the patient registration and tracking system within Epic Systems that helps healthcare providers manage patient information and statuses from the time they enter the facility to the time they leave. Prelude also offers key functions that enable providers and other members of a patient’s care team to stay on top of insurance coverage and documentation.
With the Prelude module, Epic users are enabled to…
- Manage admission, discharge, and transfer processes and protocols more efficiently
- Maintain the accuracy and reliability of important patient information
- Connect insurance providers to clinical staff and admitted patients
- Ensure proper documentation, coverage, and financial assistance for patients
The Prelude module enables staff members to utilize real-time data and analytics for maintaining patient statuses and identities throughout their entire care lifecycle. Additionally, Prelude provides system capabilities that ensure proper insurance coverage, accurate patient care documentation, and financial assistance.
How Are the Solutions Different?
On one hand, Epic Prelude focuses on managing patient registration, status, identity, and disposition from the time they’re admitted to a hospital or care facility to the time they’re discharged or transferred. On the other hand, the Grand Central module is centered around optimizing patient-tracking functions and using advanced reports, analytics, and additional support resources within the system to simplify patient care practices.
Note: If you’re interested in learning more about Epic Prelude (and its key benefits), check out our latest Prelude article, “Epic Prelude Overview: Key Features and Differentiating Factors”.
How Do Epic Prelude and Grand Central Work Together?
While Epic Prelude focuses more on managing patient registration, status, identity, and disposition throughout their patient experience, Grand Central optimizes patient-tracking functions and offers additional support resources to simplify patient flow across the organization.
The solutions share several commonalities and often work together. While the Prelude module focuses primarily on tracking patient disposition and managing insurance functions, Grand Central ensures that ADT functions are utilized correctly to track and maintain patient stay practices.
Let’s take Patient A, for example…
Patient A gets admitted to the hospital for a complication with his recent heart procedure. The nursing staff and clinicians assigned to Patient A will utilize Epic Prelude functionality to assess their current status and manage all pre-admission documentation practices and paperwork for newly admitted patients.
Once Patient A is admitted and all preliminary paperwork is complete, hospital staff assigned to the patient can utilize advanced analytics and reporting functionality to streamline patient care practices and leverage Epic software to enhance the quality of care throughout the entire patient lifecycle.
Getting Started with Epic
At Surety Systems, we understand the critical role that Epic applications play in patient flow, scheduling, and admissions. Whether you’re navigating an initial implementation, seeking to streamline existing workflows, or looking to maximize your Grand Central investment for improved efficiency and patient experience, our senior-level Epic consultants are ready to partner with you.
How Can We Help?
Need help implementing a full suite of Epic applications in your healthcare organization? Our consultants know just what it takes to achieve implementation success. Or maybe you just need some assistance integrating Grand Central into your already established Epic system? They can help with that, too.
To give you an idea of what to expect when partnering with our Epic project team, we’ve included a sample profile of one of our Epic consultants:
Surety Senior Epic Grand Central Consultant
- 13+ years of Epic experience, Certified in Epic Clarity Data Model
- Epic ADT/Prelude/Grand Central expertise
- Experience with HL7 and ASC X12 5010 interfaces
- Project Management, Analyst, and Trainer expertise
- Build, Testing, Go-Live Optimization, and Upgrade experience
Contact us today to get started with one of our expert Epic consultants.
