Union General Hospital, a community-based critical access hospital in Farmerville, Louisiana, that has served Union Parish since 1975, has gone live with the MEDITECH Expanse electronic health record (EHR). Through the MEDITECH as a Service (MaaS) subscription model, the hospital and its Rural Health Clinic now use a single cloud-hosted platform for acute and outpatient care. The subscription model supports the hospital’s ability to remain independent.
“Expanse aligns directly with our hospital's long-term mission, which is to meet the healthcare needs of our community through progress and a commitment to excellence,” said Chief Operating Officer Amanda Whiddon. “This integrated technology foundation supports Union General’s vision for whole-person care — delivering coordinated services across emergency care, psychiatric health, therapy, and family medicine — while also meeting our current and projected budgeting requirements.”
The cloud-hosted MaaS deployment provides vital operational support for staff taking on multiple roles, while clinicians have quickly embraced several key platform capabilities:
- Integrated Ambient Clinical Documentation: Providers use ambient listening technology to conduct patient exams naturally without manually typing notes during visits.
- Enhanced Patient Engagement: Through Expanse Patient Connect, the health system employs automated text reminders to improve patient engagement and reduce no-show rates in key departments, including behavioral health and therapy clinics.
- Streamlined Regional Interoperability: Through the Traverse Exchange interoperability network, Union General can share health data and expedite patient transfers to larger regional health systems, while helping eliminate duplicate scanning and retesting for transferred patients.
- Modernized Revenue Cycle: Digital, automated billing workflows have replaced legacy paper submission processes for high-volume Medicaid claims.
“On both the hospital and the clinic sides, our providers have been very pleased with Expanse,” said Whiddon. “They love the ambient listening integration, which allows them to conduct visits with patients without getting distracted by documentation. Also, the ability to personalize their workflows allows them to see the patient data they want, exactly the way they want to see it. These are features that improve the experience of clinicians, as well as enable smoother interactions with patients.”
Union General Hospital CEO Dianne Davidson also sees value in her organization’s strong MEDITECH partnership. “It can be very difficult for any health system, let alone a critical access hospital, to take on new technology and break out of longstanding information silos,” she said. “But the MEDITECH team has been great in easing that transition. Throughout our implementation, they kept us on schedule with key project deadlines and reassured us when we needed it. They also gave us guidance on best practices so we could maximize the value of our EHR.”
MEDITECH Vice President Carol Labadini agrees that the collaboration between Union General and MEDITECH will help set the stage for even more improvements in the future, including telehealth and chronic care management. “Having a solid technology foundation and vendor partnership can really make the difference for rural and critical access hospitals,” she said. “We’re proud to be supporting Union General as they pursue their goals for cohesive, patient-centered care.”
