In the latest example of hospitals building new and innovative ways to share information, Novant Health and Wake Forest Baptist Health, both with Epic EHRs, are merging their healthcare data.

In the collaboration, called “Happy Together,” patients can now access their health information from both health systems in a single view via the Epic MyChart patient portal.

“The goal is to improve patients’ understanding of medications, lab results, plan of care and follow-up appointments,” Keith Griffin, MD, chief medical informatics officer at Novant Health, said in a statement.

[Also: UC Health goes live on shared, cloud-based Epic EHR]

Until now the two health systems maintained separate MyChart accounts for each of the two organizations. But now patients have access to their health information in a single account.

About 6,700 Novant Health patients had already connected their accounts on Jan. 17 when the project went live.

With the initial launch, patients have access to information between Novant Health and Wake Forest Baptist Health. Novant plans to expand the program to more health organizations that use an Epic EHR in the future. 

Last November, the University of California San Diego Health and UC Irvine Health struck an interesting arrangement wherein they rolled out a single cloud-based instance of Epic. 

Sharing the platform between two academic medical centers means clinicians from multiple sites will have access to medical records, and also generates efficiencies and shared services. 

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Email the writer: bernie.monegain@himssmedia.com