PORT ANGELES — If all goes as planned, Olympic Medical Center will “go live” with electronic medical records by the end of this year.

The total cost of the upgrade is estimated to cost $2.5 million, over two years.

Linda Brown, chief technology officer, announced during Wednesday’s hospital district commissioners’ meeting that OMC has selected GE Centricity as its vendor.

“We feel its the best business partner for Olympic Medical going into the future,” Brown said.

“They’re a stable company, they have the resources to continue development, and they have excellent service support. . . . We are satisfied at this point.”

The Port Angeles hospital is negotiating contracts with GE Centricity that cover cost of software, licenses, technical support, maintenance and hardware.

“We’re closing in on it,” Brown said. “We’re almost done.”

The completed contract is expected to go before the board of hospital district commissioners next month.

Installation of the hardware will take place in April and May, followed by software installation, configuration and training through October.

The hospital will go live with the electronic medical records in December and expand to satellite clinics in 2010.

Meanwhile, Olympic Medical Center CEO Eric Lewis told the board that more work would have to done on the 2009 budget.

The number of patient visits were 8.5 percent below budget last month, he said.

“This resulted in gross revenues being $1.7 million below budget,” Lewis told the board.

Fewer patients were seen in admissions, length of stay, surgery, diagnostic imaging, radiation oncology and emergency room visits. Overall outpatient visits were down 11 percent.

“We’re definitely, I think, feeling the effects of the recession by having some lower outpatient volumes,” Lewis said.

“We are going to re-look at our 2009 budget — our budget was put together in August, September and October — and re-look at it compared to what we’ve experienced so far this year, and keep it on track.”

The board voted to approve a two-year contract with Peninsula Children’s Clinic for 24-7 pediatric services.

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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com