At 12:01 a.m. on Sunday, March 30, SSM St. Joseph Hospital West became the first SSM hospital to begin using the EHR system.

LAKE SAINT LOUIS, Mo. - On March 30, SSM Health Care entered a new era in patient care with the launch of an electronic health record (EHR). The EHR means safer, faster care and more convenience for patients. No more paper charts!

As a clock ticked toward 12:01 a.m. Sunday, the appointed hour for the conversion from paper to electronic patient charts, those gathered in the project command center (photo) at SSM St. Joseph Hospital West in Lake Saint Louis began to count down the seconds. Shortly St. Joseph Hospital West would be the first hospital in our health-care system to launch the EHR. The more than $300 million EHR project, known as Project Beacon, will eventually allow SSM caregivers in four states secure access to patient records at any time, from any location. Years of planning and hundreds of employees had worked for that moment.

"Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one," chanted employees from the hospital and the Project Beacon team, along with representatives from the project vendor, Madison, Wis.-based Epic.

"We're that much closer to providing the exceptional health care that our mission calls on us to provide," said Tom Langston, SSM Health Care’s chief information officer.

When the project is finished in 2010-11, the electronic medical records will be available on more than 13,000 computers at SSM facilities in Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri and Oklahoma. Eventually, SSM patients will also have access to MyChart, an on-line technology that will offer them secure access to parts of their medical records.

“We're very proud to be the first SSM hospital to go live," said Pat Komoroski, St. Joseph Hospital West president. “We're excited because it's going to make for a safer environment for our patients. Our patients and our caregivers deserve the best system possible.”

On May 31, the next SSM facility will go live with EHR: St. Mary's Hospital in Madison, Wis.

Listen to the launch of the electronic health record at SSM St. Joseph Hospital West: Streaming Windows Media | MP3

Learn more about electronic health records at SSM.