At a Glance

Background and Challenge 

While embarking on a complex, multi-phase Epic implementation, the University of Vermont (UVM) Health Network needed to increase user engagement and adoption at new sites, while simultaneously optimizing EHR system use at existing sites. With training staff and resources fully engaged in implementation activities, project leaders wanted to minimize disruption by keeping the active training environment stable and separate, and limiting involvement from busy members of the training and analyst teams.  

Solution 

With just one month until go-live, UVM Health Network partnered with Tegria to design a sustainable demo and training environment strategy and an independent Epic demo environment including end-to-end workflows using clinically robust patient examples. The compact timeline was essential to the project and required an expert team with an advanced, niche skillset that could assess their demo team’s needs, plan end-to-end workflows, and create a custom Epic build quickly and proficiently. 

Initial work centered around developing an EHR environment strategy to align the build structure with the needs and workflow of clinical staff. Guided by this strategy, the Tegria team executed the build and configured system settings to the needs of clinicians and staff. To ensure the newly expanded demo team could execute clear, successful, and engaging demos that would increase end-user confidence and readiness, the Tegria team created a complete toolkit to prepare, evaluate, and guide Informatics staff through the process. 

Environment Strategy 

 Tegria’s team of experts: 

• Conducted SME interviews to identify the demo team’s needs and prioritize content for the initial environment build.  
• Collaborated with client technical resources to create an environment structure, refresh schedule, and data courier connections for efficient long-term maintenance. 
• Developed five end-to-end patient scenarios to be built in the environment, including clinic visits, emergency admissions, interfacility transfers, and specialty workflows. 

Build Execution 

Tegria’s team of experts: 

• Configured system settings to maximize the efficiency and versatility of the environment, including facility structure, users, and providers, while improving the quality of the demos to meet the diverse needs of the Network.   
• Created 75 unique patients to support end-to-end clinical demos across applications. 

Demo Toolkit 

 Tegria’s team of experts: 

• Documented the environment build using standard training tools for transition to the client’s environment lead. 
• Inventoried each patient example in a patient library.
• Created demo scripts for each patient scenario. 
• Established a credentialing process and quality assurance framework for expanded use of the environment. 

Results  

Completed on an accelerated schedule, the demo environment supported UVM Health Network’s successful systemwide Epic rollout.  

The new demo environment: 

• Reduced environment prep time to 15-60 minutes. 
• Eliminated the technical setup burden for the training team. 
• Upskilled the Informatics team through demo credentialing. 
• Showcased Epic’s full capabilities through end-to-end workflows. 
• Provided a stable, up-to-date environment with a data courier and content mitigation strategy. 

With a demo environment that performs as expected, the client was able to inspire confidence and improve alignment throughout the health network by highlighting workflows across many patient encounters. By demonstrating this big picture view of the system, end-users can feel informed and excited about changes within the health system, increasing overall adoption and engagement with the EHR.