On June 1st, 2023, the West Hawaiʻi Region (WHR) of Hawaiʻi Health Systems, which includes Kona Community Hospital (KCH) and Kohala Hospital (KOH), is slated to go live with its new electronic health records systems (EHR).

The Epic CARE*Link Community Connect implementation, which is made possible through a clinical partnership with Queen’s Health Systems (QHS), grants WHR access to QHS Epic CARE*Link EHR.

Epic promotes communication and collaboration among healthcare providers regarding improved patient outcomes. The new system streamlines patient care and clinical workflows, enhances clinical decisionmaking and patient outcomes. Larger hospitals in the nation use Epic, including three of Hawaiʻi’s larger hospital systems – Hawaii Pacific Health, Kaiser Permanente, and The Queen’s Health System.

The project outline stage began two years ago, and the project contract was executed in the summer of 2022. Since then, a dedicated project implementation team from WHR and QHS has spent many months of careful planning and coordination to carry out this large implementation project.

Since early April, hospital staff have attended required user training for the new application. The hospital has added staff to provide the current permanent staff with the necessary training and immersion into the new EHR. Various trainings will continue into mid-May and will be built into future orientations.

The hospitals have a soft-live date of May 20th, where hospital staff will work in two systems concurrently as they ramp up to the June 1st switchover date. During this time patients may experience longer wait times when checking in at the admitting counter.