At a Glance

Background and Challenge

University of Colorado Health (UCHealth), a multi-region Epic enterprise health system, serves patients in the Rocky Mountain region. Expanding through venture, Community Connect, and organic internal growth has enabled UCHealth to extend its reach and serve more people in its community.

While the system’s Epic project team had a perfect track record of meeting milestones and exceeding expectations, they needed to scale Epic implementations across an ever-growing system. After accepting a challenge to “do more with less,” they set out to ensure systems weren’t a rate-limiting factor in UCHealth’s rapid organizational growth.

Solution

Tegria helped UCHealth create a dynamic and agile expansion program to accommodate their growing and evolving patient population. Working shoulder to shoulder, they found new ways to:

• Manage projects to oversee concurrent implementation waves.
• Use standard documentation and tools.
• Provide a consistent end-user experience.
• Quickly manage risks and escalations.

Creating an entirely new Epic PMO to manage all types of new Epic implementations was key to the program. Tegria provided the support and mentorship UCHealth needed to grow their own experts.

UCHealth was the face of all internal changes; Tegria led from behind, facilitating team work sessions and mentoring UCHealth team members to take on increasingly complex project work. As the expanding PMO added team members to manage new upgrade releases, specialty projects, and clinical optimization, Tegria’s standard processes and documentation enabled smooth and speedy ramp-ups. Tegria team members worked side by side with UCHealth mentors to get new hires up and running as effective project managers within three months.

“There’s a sense of understanding that we’re in it together and you’re going to help me think things through. We’ll figure it out together,” said UCHealth’s Epic PMO manager. “Tegria’s culture is one of willingness. They’re analytical, likable, and engaging. Most of all, I trust them.”

Results

Establishing a successful, high-performing Epic PMO team enabled UCHealth to expand access to care through recurring, well-executed implementations. Their achievements included:

• 57 departments live on Epic in six months
• Monthly ambulatory implementations
• Expanded implementations to include inpatient facilities