Mayo Clinic's operating income held steady in 2018 despite higher expenses with the switch to a new computer system for electronic health records at its largest medical centers.
The Rochester-based clinic released 2018 financial results on Tuesday that featured operating income of $706 million, comparable to the 2017 earnings, on $12.6 billion in revenue.
Over the last several years, Mayo has been planning for a new electronic health record as part of a $1.5 billion technology upgrade. Last year, the transition to a new health record system took place at Mayo's medical centers in Rochester, Arizona and Florida, prompting the clinic to reduce the volume of scheduled medical services starting about a week before the switch and for several weeks afterward.
"That's probably worth about $50 million in revenue," said Dennis Dahlen, chief financial officer at Mayo Clinic, in an interview. "In the overall scheme of things, it's not that material, but there was a footprint on revenue from implementation."
With about 65,000 employees overall, Mayo is a nonprofit that operates hospitals and clinics in five states. Last year, the clinic treated more than 1.2 million patients.
In 2017, Mayo started introducing at some clinics and hospitals in Minnesota its new electronic health record, which captures information on a patient's medical history including medications, allergies and health issues. The clinic has used electronic records for years, but the new unified system was meant to allow for easier updates, particularly for information tools in the system plus computer alerts to clinicians of potential problems.
The new system went live in Rochester in May and in Arizona and Florida in November.
The financial report released Tuesday shows that medical services provided the vast majority of revenue at Mayo Clinic last year at $10.6 billion, up 6.8 percent compared with 2017.