Case Study: Essentia Healthcare achieves a consolidated service desk and six-month EHR rollout with Heat Software

Health System Standardizes Systemwide IncidentTracking with HEAT Service Management

Essentia Health, based in Duluth, MN, consolidated three regional health systems into a single organization serving 14,000 employees across 17 hospitals and 62 clinics. With a tight six-month timeline, IT leaders had to merge three service desks and stand up unified support for a systemwide Epic EHR rollout and patient portal access while handling roughly 12,000–13,000 monthly issues.

Essentia deployed FrontRange IT Service Management (HEAT), rolling out Incident, Problem, Change, Knowledge and Self Service modules, integrating Active Directory and patient/employee data, and establishing an EHR Command Center. The solution’s out‑of‑the‑box dashboards and linked incident–problem–change workflows created rapid visibility, faster routing and resolution, a virtual support model that reduced travel costs, and measurable efficiency gains—faster ticket closures and a standardized platform adopted across other departments.

Essentia Healthcare

Katie Anich

Service Desk Manager