Moving Right Along!

Now on deck – Loudoun and Fair Oaks folks – stand by – you’re next! And I hope everyone is paying attention to the awesome job Fairfax is doing. How did it happen? They learned from our brave first go-live team – The Ambulatory Very Brave Rock Stars. And that’s how it all happens. Hire the best. Prepare. Train. Do. Make mistakes. Fix. Learn. Re-train. Laugh. Lose sleep. Eat. Repeat.

I recently stopped by the Command Center at Fairfax and was amazed at how many people were down there just getting it done. Calmly. Rationally. Just moving along as if this were just another day at the office. Granted, a busy, crazy, hectic day. But just another day of doing what we do best. The room was full – doctors, IT whizzes, nurses, administrators, registration – you name it. I chatted with Dr. Ruffin and Don Kemon and was told that the call volume to the Command Center had already dropped by more than 50% and over 2/3rds of the problems reported had been solved. Reports coming in are that a very large majority of nurses, physicians and therapists say they like it and can see how once they are more comfortable with the software it will help them and their patients considerably.

As one of our nurses, Adriene Perry says, “The transition means so much in so many ways. It will save nurses valuable time that we can devote to caring for our patients. It will take nursing care and what our hospital can do for patients to another level. Inova has such top-notch nurses and clinicians with a wealth of experience; implementing Epic will make things even better.”

And rest assured Loudoun and Fair Oaks, one of your saving graces will be the super users. In fact, there are a large number – 900 of quite capable super users in addition to the excellent staff that will be working in your Command Center 24/7. Some are from ILH and some from IFOH, so they will back on their home turf to offer super duper assistance. Our users, builders, trainers, physicians and administrators are committed to the success of this project and our results show that commitment.