29 June 2021

Catching up with our EMR champions!

The Electronic Medical Record (EMR) team had recently kicked off their first EMR champion briefings with over 190 staff across Northern Health. Nominated by their colleagues and leaders, these champions have valuable leadership qualities, are influential and trusted by their peers.   

A total number of 10 briefings were organised and delivered in June 2021 via MS Teams. During the session, we introduced the EMR program’s scope and outline to our champions, explained what a champion is, as well as sharing the resources that they can use to help their peers learn about the EMR. To thank you our champions for dedicating their precious time to attend the meetings and share the information that they have learnt with the colleagues during the session, CPD hours will be awarded for APHRA.  

To wrap up the session, a survey was sent to the champions to capture their feedback. Great feedback was received from the group. Fiona Moate, Senior Clinician Occupational Therapist, said she thought the briefing was informative and providing clarification around the role of a champion was useful. “It was great to meet other EMR Champions to network with from other professions working in different parts of the organisation and at different stages of their careers”, she added. 

“We were extremely fortunate to have a wide range of staff, both in the clinical and non-clinical setting to be joining us on this journey. It was great to see them being so eager and passionate towards this program”, said Elspeth Fink-Jensen, Change Manager, EMR Program. 

Due to the recent lockdown, all sessions were held via MS Teams. “It was unfortunate because we were really looking forward to meeting our champions face-to-face. With things starting to go back to COVID normal, we will be resuming the in-person sessions starting next month”, said Cliff Wiltshire, EMR Training Manager. 

During the sessions, one of the topics that interested our champions the most was the EMR training, which will commence in June 2022. Dr Rachael Coutts, Associate Director, Medical Education, highlighted that it is beneficial to start training early in the journey, especially given the scale and complexity of the project. “It is a steep and exciting learning curve. I can’t wait to find out more so that I can provide EMR support to my team, both in my clinical role in ED and educational role with junior doctors.” 

A huge thank you to those of you who attended our June catch-up.  

The invites for the July catch-up will be sent to the champions later this week. If you were nominated as an EMR champion and did not receive any email communications from us, or if you would like to become one of our EMR champions, please kindly email us at NH-EMRQuestions@nh.org.au.  

We look forward to meeting our EMR champions in person!