June 2023
Six months ago, I started this newsletter to share information especially relevant to you – our nurses and ancillary clinicians. In the process, I also wanted to provide a channel for you to share your thoughts, ideas, questions and concerns. The feedback I’ve received has been phenomenal.
I’ve reached out to some of you directly, and some comments were submitted anonymously, but either way, there have been some great themes that I believe deserve a broader response for everyone’s benefit.
There are too many alerts in Epic.
The pop-ups in Epic are usually a Best Practice Advisory (BPA), a reminder tool triggered by patient vitals or a response to screening, documentation, medication or other orders. Over time, more and more of these have been deemed necessary. But now, a project team is reviewing all BPAs, including their content, format and usage to ensure these alerts are meaningful. We have started to engage with impacted user groups and System Councils to further analyze and streamline the use of BPAs. We’ll keep you posted on our progress.
There needs to be a better way to learn about changes.
We’re continually working to ensure information is communicated to you in a timely manner. Part of this includes informing you of changes that directly affect you. Adding this newsletter was one step. We’re also looking at other processes to ensure change management and communications are clear, consistent and easily available to you and your managers.
There’s demand for Epic training for specific specialties.
Last year, we introduced a series of “efficiency” courses in LMS for inpatient nurses and we are currently updating the inpatient nursing new hire training. With your feedback through this newsletter and the KLAS survey, we recognize the need and opportunity to expand these courses to specialty and allied health areas. This is a work in progress, and we will provide updates as we have them.
The documentation process should be made more efficient.
Whether you’ve pointed out a specific role, area, or flowsheet that could use improving, we’re reviewing each of your ideas to see what changes can be made. You use these systems every day, so keep your ideas coming in!
These are just a few of the more frequent topics based on your feedback. Please look below for a new section to this newsletter, “Ask the Informaticist” where our team will continue to respond to your questions and ideas monthly.
If you have thoughts or comments, you’d like to share, please click the link below.
Share Your Thoughts
