Sawtooth Mountain Clinic to upgrade electronic medical record system in October

In October, the Sawtooth Mountain Clinic will transition to Epic, a new electronic medical record software.

“The current medical record that we’re using was starting to become dated,” said Kate Surbaugh, CEO of Sawtooth Mountain Clinic. “It just wasn’t capable of doing as much as a more modern system.”

The electronic medical system, owned by Epic Systems Corporation with its headquarters in Madison, Wis., is widely used throughout the healthcare industry and top-ranked hospitals.

“Epic is really the gold standard these days for electronic health records,” Surbaugh said. Hospitals such as the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and Essentia Health and St. Luke’s in Duluth also use Epic software.

Surbaugh said the clinic wanted to use the same software as the “places that we refer patients to” to improve efficiencies and the ability to share patients’ medical records.

The clinic is working behind the scenes to implement the new software, which is scheduled to launch on Oct. 14. Surbaugh said that clinic patients may experience slightly longer wait times or visits in the immediate period following Oct. 14 as the staff begins using the new software. “There’s a lot of training happening, so hopefully it’ll be a pretty smooth process.”

WTIP’s Kalli Hawkins spoke with Kate Surbaugh, CEO of Sawtooth Mountain Clinic, about the transition to Epic, new staff, federal funding, Medicaid, and more. The audio from the interview is below.

Kalli Hawkins August 25, 2025