After a recent site visit, a Department of Pathology team is encouraged that Yale’s pending transition to the Epic Beaker laboratory information system will improve alignment, standardization, and efficiency by enabling access to all of a patient’s information in one place.
The Yale team saw how Geisinger Diagnostic Medicine Institute in Danville, PA, is successfully using the Epic Beaker system with a volume and complexity of cases similar to Yale, integrating their own workflow into the system. The team learned how Epic enables the merger of pathology and laboratory medicine test orders, results, and accompanying data onto one platform.
The transition to Epic presents an opportunity to work across institutions within the Enterprise and further build on the partnership established in the new joint operation with Yale School of Medicine and Yale New Haven Health.
The visiting team included Angelique W. Levi, MD, Vice Chair, Clinical Operations & Reference Services; Peter Gershkovich, MD, MHA, Medical Director, Pathology Informatics and Cancer Data Science; Adebowale Adeniran, MD, Director of Cytopathology; Christine Minerowicz, MD, Chair and CLIA Director, Bridgeport and Milford Campus Laboratories; Sudhir Perincheri, PhD, MBBS, Medical Director, Digital Pathology; Cindy DeRiso, Senior Pathology Manager, Histology; Kevin Schofield, CT, Director, Reference Services Clinical Operations; Matthew Zawalich, Vice President, Digital Transitions, Yale New Haven Health; and Lauren Skolnick, Laboratory IT Manager, Epic Beaker, Yale New Haven Health.
“Looking forward, there are many advantages in terms of investing in the future and how we will be aligned with technologies including digital and AI applications. But what we gain immediately – having all the patient information accessible in one place in a linked and integrated fashion – is very important,” Dr. Levi said.
Dr. Gershkovich said the goal of the new system is to find relevant information about a patient seamlessly – “a system designed not only to find the patient chart, but also find information in that chart that is relevant to making a pathological diagnosis.”
“You’re getting information that’s from many different places when we’re talking about cancer care, prognostic testing, and diagnostics,” Dr. Levi said. “It’s become much more complicated to manage all those data points. Without being on an integrated and aligned system, you’re getting pieces of information from different places, but not the ability to have linked and integrated reports in one spot.”
Cindy DeRiso, Senior Pathology Manager, Histology, said like any change, the transition will require an adjustment, but she was encouraged “to see a large lab that was able to transition from one system to another.”
The current CoPath Lab Information System is sundowning in December 2026 and the transition to Epic is expected to take around 18 months. The system has about 300 users. Yale New Haven Health has approved funding for the transition.
Before visiting Geisinger, the pathology clinical operations team reviewed the YNHHS Delivery Network locations at Lawrence + Memorial and Greenwich Hospitals, which both migrated to Epic Beaker a few years ago. However, they do not have the same volume and workflow as Yale Pathology, necessitating the Geisinger visit.
“It was a good lesson in visiting a health system with similar high volume complexities and issues that we would have,” Dr. Levi said.
“Data exists but there are barriers like log-in screens, navigation, etc.,” Dr. Gershkovich said. “We want to reduce that to the point that it’s ergonomic, efficient, and there are no barriers. The goal is to have it in a location where we can try to get efficient access to all this data.”