Electronic Health Records For Dummies

Determining your office readiness

You may find it helpful to create a personalized go-live assessment, not unlike the one you took part in during the initial phases of EHR planning. Your vendor will have some ideas about what to include in such an assessment, but if you wish to create a customized version in-house, you can divide your checklist into some major categories, starting with technical readiness for go-live. Think about some of the following technical issues:

EHR accessibility for each user on every workstation

Workstations have the ability to print (and print to the right location)

Workstations are properly labeled

Interfaces are thoroughly tested from both a technical and clinical standpoint

System speed is responsive with no noticeable delays

Downtime strategy is in place and everyone knows how to access critical patient information

Network, hardware, and software support resource plan is in place

All volume testing and performance evaluations are complete

All support plans are documented (help desk, support for remote access, error tracking, and so on.)

Putting on the brakes

If you’ve done the proper planning and jumped through all the adoption and initial implementation hoops, then you should be geared up for go-live. However, be on the lookout for signs that might indicate you need to step back and take a brief time-out from the go-live proceedings. Here are some red flags to watch out for prior to go-live:

Staff resistance or lack of buy-in

Lack of funding

Lack ...