An Early Look at the Future State of Our Practices

Readiness Agents have spent the last several weeks conducting impact assessments to identify the magnitude of change to our workflows and how these changes will affect our employees. To mitigate the impact, the Intentional Redesign team has designed what we call “pre-go-live toolkits." These materials provide the readiness agents with the necessary tools they need to communicate the changes to our employees, mitigate impacts, and get each of our departments a step closer to being ready for the Epic go-live.

“We encourage all of our employees to review these changes so that they can begin to familiarize themselves with Epic before go-live,” said Rachel Lewis, MD, associate CMIO. “The toolkits provide a structured approach to communicate the change to our practices and standardize our message to all our employees and staff.”

Pre-go-live Toolkit Topics

Topics addressed in the toolkits include charting of chief complaints, vitals, medications, allergies, and health history. For example, chief complaints and vitals will be entered by the clinical support staff (where possible and applicable) during rooming, along with review and reconciliation of medications, allergies, and health histories, all prior to the patient seeing the provider. In practices that operate without support staff, the workflows will be adapted for a provider-only model.

Other workflows that will be different in Epic include the patient’s pharmacy and benefits verification, how the patient’s checkout is managed, and the importance of having the providers closing the patient encounter in a timely manner.

“As part of our commitment to assist the departments for a successful go-live, we are creating these toolkits so we can address these process-related changes now, reducing the amount of change that our workforce will have to adopt at go-live,” said Samantha Bernard, associate director of Intentional Redesign, Business Operations.

Readiness Agents Here to Help

The Readiness Agents in your area will be implementing these toolkits in the upcoming weeks.

“The Readiness Agents are our eyes in each department and are helping to provide us with feedback that we can use to personalize the toolkits for our employees,” said Jesenia Serrano, project manager. “We know these changes present challenges, but we are here to support you and your practices in delivering high-quality care.”