Iron River – Last year, NORTHSTAR Health System entered into a partnership with Aspirus, a Wausau, Wis.-based health system, and became officially acquired in July 2014.

As NORTHSTAR’s physicians and staff members assimilate into the Aspirus system, they have been improving processes and creating connections with other experts in the western Upper Peninsula and northern Wisconsin.

Last fall, other members of the Aspirus system in the Upper Peninsula implemented the leading Electronic Health Record (EHR) system Epic. This system makes it easy to exchange key medical information across care locations throughout the Aspirus system.

Beginning Aug. 23, 2015, Epic will be implemented at NORTHSTAR, allowing physicians and clinical staff to access complete patient records and ‘follow’ patients from appointment to appointment, primary care physician to specialist, emergency department to hospital. This will streamline care and help prevent expensive duplication of services.

Pre-registration will become one of the added benefits of implementing Epic at NORTHSTAR. Beginning Aug. 17, patients with scheduled visits can expect to receive a phone call from NORTHSTAR to pre-register them for their upcoming appointment. With pre-registration, the patient simply comes to the clinic or hospital, and signs a treatment agreement with no additional registration required. This cuts down on wait times, and helps get the patient to their destination in a more efficient manner.

Perhaps most exciting, patients will have greater access to their own health information through an online patient portal called MyAspirus. Using this electronic tool, Aspirus patients can review test results, view upcoming and past appointments, check their children’s immunization records, seek medical advice from a provider and receive automated health maintenance reminders. This all can be done on a computer or mobile device, without the restriction of office hours.

NORTHSTAR is very pleased to be implementing Epic, one of the most internationally-recognized electronic health record systems.