Officials at the St. Paul, Minn.-based HealthEast Care System have approved a five-year $135 million allocation to build a new electronic health record (EHR) system, the Pioneer Press reports.   

The four-hospital nonprofit health system currently employs seven different EHR systems, including platforms from Allscripts, McKesson and eClinicalWorks. Officials say the various systems resulted in a disjointed and fractured delivery of health information across the hospitals. HealthEast has selected an Epic Systems platform to integrate all seven systems together.

"We've got to do better than having multiple electronic records," said HealthEast president and chief executive officer Kathryn Correia to the Pioneer Press.

According to the report, an additional 40 staff members will be hired for the Epic implementation. The EHR system is slated to go live in HealthEast hospitals by May 2014. These hospitals include the 184-bed St. John's Hospital; 253-bed St. Joseph's Hospital; 140-bed Bethesda Hospital; and the 86-bed hospital at Woodwinds Health Campus. HealthEast clinics will follow suit by November 2014.

HealthEast will join the more than 25 percent of Minnesota hospitals and 33 percent of state health clinics already using an Epic EHR.