UK St. Claire will be getting some software upgrades. The Government Contract Review Committee in Frankfort granted the University of Kentucky $95 million to implement the initiative.
Barry Swanson, chief procurement officer for the University, said the funding will be used to support Project Blue-Connect. The effort aims to change the organizational infrastructure at UK healthcare recently acquired Kings Daughters and St. Claire hospitals. The two software programs the project will introduce are Epic, an electronic health record system, and Workday, an enterprise resources planning system.
“This project is to extend the use of our instance of Epic to both of those organizations. It also brings in then, the enterprise resource planning tools for both of those organizations, and that tool is basically the general ledger. It’s the payroll system, it’s the supply chain system, for them to really operate their healthcare organizations,” said Swanson.
Swanson said these programs will go a long way to help streamline medical care across the central and eastern Kentucky region, and that they will benefit the state in more ways than one.
“It’s really three major projects that we’re putting into place that will benefit both of those organizations, but there’s also benefit then to the university because we can share records across the organization for our patients as they transfer through those different organizations. It’ll also give us a chance to be able to map to other organizations, within healthcare organizations, within the commonwealth,” said Swanson.
Officials said Project Blue-Connect is designed to improve clinical quality, enable greater integration and reporting, and enhance the employee and patient experience. Swanson said they hope to have Workday implemented at UK King’s Daughters and UK St. Claire in the spring of 2026, and Epic by that summer.