4 April 2022

Let the EMR ‘go-live’ countdown begin!

We are one year away from Northern Health’s Electronic Medical Record (EMR) ‘go-live’ on 3 April 2023. Looking ahead, this will be an exciting year for all staff including our EMR analysts, Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), champions and Accountable Leaders. 

 As the EMR workflows are being built and tested in the coming months, there will be more opportunities for EMR champions, super-users and staff, to see and learn more about the system before training starts in early 2023. Thank you to our EMR champions who have been involved and who joined the March EMR champion briefing, where the EMR patient journey board was introduced.  

“We have been looking forward to meeting our champions in person and it was great to restart the program again after the necessary pause in recent months. We have a program to keep champions up to date each month and to learn about the workflows. We encourage staff to find out who their local champion is by asking their manager,” says Elspeth Fink-Jensen, EMR Change Manager.

“If you would like to be a champion, you can always contact the EMR team to sign up. We run briefings with a hybrid approach so our champions can choose to attend the session in person or via MS teams.”

EMR training preparation will be underway, starting May, as we recruit EMR trainers to join the team to develop training materials. They will also be responsible for facilitating classroom training sessions, as well as supporting our staff during go-live in 2023. 

“Other than EMR trainers, we will be seeking expressions of interest for the role of super-users in May to further support our staff during go-live. The role will be supernumerary which allows the super-user to provide ‘at the elbow’ support to their peers,” says Cliff Wiltshire, EMR Training Manager.

For more information on training, click here. 

Behind the scenes, the EMR technical team is setting up the training rooms (located at all sites, including NCHER), as well as purchasing new workstations on wheels (WOWs), laptop carts, label and ID band printers and barcode scanners. 

Being one year away from go-live, your thoughts on the Northern Health EMR are important to us, which is why we encourage you to complete the EMR survey so we can make sure our communications reach you in the right way. 

The EMR survey is anonymous and is open until 11.59 pm on 14 April 2022. As a token of gratitude to our staff for taking their time to complete the survey despite their busy schedule, you can enter a lucky draw and win a hamper! 

Trish Aldridge, EMR Director, expressed her thanks and strongly encourages Northern Health staff “to spread the word about the survey, as the results are extremely valuable and insightful for the EMR team.” 

Complete the EMR survey now!