New EMR Launch

Know your resources, be able to contact them easily for assistance.

Be able to prioritize mission critical issues from minor issues and gripes.

Keep a notebook of good ideas for later optimizations.

Keep your cool.

At the start people will need a lot of help, but as time passes, realize that users need to own their processes and functions. There are those that will always choose landholding until the hand is not there.

People freak out about change. Remind them that this week week will be worse than it used to be, but in two weeks it will be as good as it was, and in two more weeks it will be better than it was.

Epic isn't too bad but it's the type of system that you don't know what you're doing until you are actually live and messing with it. It will be frustrating for the first few days but I promise it gets better.

We had a 'parking lot' (large easel-sized note paper) in each nurses station where they could write out concerns to be addressed by the team, so nothing would be forgotten in the moment. This was really helpful for night shift for whom support was sadly lacking.

I LOOOOVE paper (no sarcasm, I really do). It's short, concise, and there is a strange sense of nostalgia and peace in the unit when we're on paper. But so far it's been a decent launch, the EPIC trainers are very helpful.

I have to say that I love EPIC. I can chart much quicker, do an admission in less than 20 minutes. I just have an affinity for it. I am putting it good use as I am working on my practicum for MSN and there is such a need for people that understand it and can teach it. I am now helping the July residents navigate.

As far as downtime, we have a team on call, we have never gone more than 2 hours w/o it. Not sure what system you have, PP with the 2 week downtime, but we paid enough money for EPIC that they get their butts there and fix it. We have someone on call 24/7. I do audits from home and I have had trouble with access to things, I can get someone from our EPIC IT team on the phone immediately and they have stayed on the phone with me until my issue was fixed. I love my IT buds :)