UTICA, N.Y. -- Before all three Utica hospitals merge into one location, Mohawk Valley Health System has merged their records system.

It's called Epic, and MVHS officials hope that will also describe the extent to which it streamlines operations when it comes to patient records.

Right now, dozens of Epic experts are sitting in an unused area of Faxton Hospital, troubleshooting and taking email questions for doctors and others using the new system, which just went active around 5:15 a.m. this past Saturday morning.

A doctor with MVHS says what he thinks is the greatest benefit of the new system-smoother patient transfers to other hospitals.

"We don't even really have to send any records with them. They actually will be able to sign in, access our system, look at our cat scans so they don't have to be reprinted or redone or put on a disc. They'll have all that information right there for them when the patient gets there. That is probably the greatest part of the system,” said Paul Davidson, the chief medical operations officer.

Those troubleshooting experts will be here for about three more weeks. MVHS officials point out that it's a little cash infusion for the economy, too. They'll be staying in local hotels, eating in local restaurants, etc.

Davidson says he hasn't got as many calls of confusion as he expected – he's getting calls from new users at MVHS complimenting the system.