Northern Health is celebrating a huge milestone – in just two weeks, we went live with an Electronic Medical Record (EMR) at Northern Hospital Epping, Broadmeadows Hospital, Bundoora Centre, and Craigieburn Centre!

In our rollout, we have included device integration including ECG management, results and orders, clinical documentation and medication management for inpatients and specialist modules for ICU, Emergency, Surgery and Anaesthesia. We are proud to say that Northern Health is also the first Cerner Oracle site to implement the maternity module for inpatients and outpatients.

There are benefits to being one of the last metropolitan health services to roll out an EMR, including many lessons learnt from those who have gone before us, and we have the latest and greatest code.

The preparation undertaken to prepare our organisation for EMR go live has been instrumental in the smooth transition from paper to electronic documentation. The EMR team has designed and built more than 300 plus Northern Health specific workflows in the EMR, involved more than 250 Subject Matter Experts (EMR) to test the system within a two-to-three-week timeframe, and trained more than 500 staff in 10 weeks. This is an enormous team effort to come to where we are standing today.

“Other than thanking our own EMR team, we would also like to acknowledge our 600 plus EMR Super Users, Clinical Transition Team, Executives, and Leadership. We couldn’t have done this without your contribution and dedication to the EMR project,” said Trish Aldridge, EMR Program Director.

“I am extremely proud of the hard work our teams have contributed to in the last two years, against all odds. Designing during COVID-19 virtually, was one of the many challenges we had to overcome. Our team is strong and resilient which has resulted in a clinical system that enables our workflows as designed by our clinicians, and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.”

EMR support

Starting from Monday, 25 September, EMR support will be scaling back to the following level:

If there are any urgent incidents/requests, this will be escalated to EMR On Call via the Afterhours Hospital Coordinator.

Featured image: Anthony Gust, Executive Director, Digital Health, Siva Sivarajah, Chief Executive, Lisa Cox, Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer, Associate Professor Wanda Stelmach, Chief Medical Officer and Trish Aldridge, EMR Program Director.