Epic will buy the Mayo Clinic’s data center for $46 million in a sale-leaseback deal for the 62,000-square-foot facility. That means the EHR giant will lease it back to Mayo for four years, with an option to continue doing so in perpetuity, as first reported by Finance and Commerce.

The move comes almost a year after Mayo first announced it would replace its existing electronic health record system with one from Epic. In that deal, Mayo enlisted Epic for EHR and revenue cycle technology, eyeing a partnership that would last several decades.

In an interview with Healthcare IT News in February 2015, Mayo Clinic CIO Cris Ross said that, while the provider hoped to go live in 2017, the project will likely stretch beyond that. 

The commitment to Epic longstanding, he added, and would include more than IT infrastructure.

"We believe this is an important foundation to what we do. It's a part of our strategy – but only part – from a technology standpoint," Ross said at the time. "Mayo will continue to be innovative and differentiate itself in the market in a way to better serve patients. Part of that will come directly out of the EHR, and some of it won't."

Twitter: @mikemiliardHITN