When is the Best Time for an EHR Go-Live?

Posted by The HCI Group

on June 20, 2017 at 10:50 AM

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A client recently asked us: "When is the best time to do an EHR go-live?"

Let’s look at what some of our go-live experts had to say...

Most ambulatory clinics are closed
Less activity in acute areas
Allows users and the project team to work through workflow issues and bug fixes before peak activity continues Monday morning

The only potential downside for a Thursday morning go-live is that EDs could be active – plan accordingly.

One full business day with ambulatory to identify issues, followed by a full weekend with ambulatory (and potentially other ancillaries) closed
Fix bugs with maximum troubleshooting and minimal impact
Lessens the need for the IT team to work on the weekend

Lower volume/less users in the system – if there is an issue, it has less of immediate impact
Lower census on weekend – allows users to be slower in the new system under a slower population
Less of an impact on patients
Clinics that are open have little ambulatory impact
Issues in the system can be identified prior to Monday morning
Avoids a Monday morning shift 1 big wave

Your Patient Population – Analysis on your lowest census volume throughout the week (traditionally 12-2 AM on weekend)
Considering shift changes to ensure there isn’t a conflict or at least ½ shift duration after cutover before shift change
Not scheduling your go-live around month end to avoid added financial pressures

The first practice should be with just technical staff running through the full plan and talking through handoffs
The second practice should include the remaining build team analysts who are utilizing data courier express to move items
The last practice should include the same group of remaining build team analysts

Additional items like content records can be pushed in following the upgrade, once caregivers have the system live again.

Delay manual reporting runs: a best practice is to do this in the early morning hours so that everything is on the system when rounding activities resume the following morning.
Map out a go-live project plan: workflows, reporting triggers, etc., with clear-cut timelines and resource assignment
Production environment validation tests: validate that bill templates have been moved
Practice scenarios to one-off environments
Have a cut over plan: execute a few dry runs to see how long it takes to cut over and plan cutover downtime accordingly
Make sure have bandwidth post go-live with incoming volumes and communications

While there’s no silver bullet for the ideal go-live time, one thing is true: every organization must find their best time.

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