Message from CNO to Inpatient Nursing Staff

Dear Nursing Staff,

As you all know, we will embark on a "New Era in Nursing Documentation" tomorrow (June 11) when we have the “Go Live” of the first phase of the Cerner Nursing Optimization! A lot of work has gone into reviewing current policy, evidence-based standards, and IT industry norms in preparation to provide you all with a better tool to capture the care you provide to our patients.

First, thanks to all of you who served as subject matter experts, change leaders, etc., and kept this project going while juggling multiple other items. Secondly, let's review a few details before tomorrow’s “Go Live.”

As a reminder, the overarching goal of this project—that will continue in phases for several months to come—is to align with Cerner’s “model” content. This serves to rewind multiple years of internal (EAH) customizations and take nursing documentation back to the “essentials.” Getting to essentials of documentation is key for many reasons, but most importantly, it reduces your “chart time” and promotes more time for you to deliver care to patients.

It is critically important to me and your management team that we eliminate duplications and inefficiencies in care that prevent you all from achieving EAH's mission of "High-Quality, Compassionate Health Care." Giving nurses time back is a priority for me and I'm optimistic that this project will help meet that goal. Keep in mind, however, that the changes this week are building blocks for many more exciting improvements in the future!

Of course, as with any large-scale change, growing pains and initial slowness is expected. However, the overall impact should significantly reduce your number of clicks per day. Moving forward, we'll monitor metrics and provide data on mandatory charting reductions and efficiencies gained. As one example, the Admission form will go from 450+ questions to under 100! That’s exciting!

I want to assure you all that many steps have been taken to make this adoption as seamless and painless as possible. Here are a few examples:

• A Command Center will be open 24/7 for up to 2 weeks
• A 2-hour training session was recently provided to all nurses
• There will be a variety of tips/tools available on units and/or through QR codes
• Unit-based nursing educators will be performing roving rounds for just-in-time elbow support
• And your management team members will serve as the Command Center response crew to provide you all their support and expertise. They will split up in order to cover day and night shifts.

Please take full advantage of these resources and don't be shy about asking questions and reporting issues or concerns. Despite a lot of hard work and effort upfront, I do anticipate some hiccups with this large of an optimization. We are relying on you all to report the findings so we can resolve outstanding items immediately.

Lastly, I want to say thank you for your positive attitudes and remarks coming into this change. Overall, that's what has been heard through classroom training comments and that makes us very happy! I appreciate all that you do to serve our patients, families, and community, and genuinely hope this makes your job easier and better!

As always, thank you for choosing to be a nurse at East Alabama Health! We’re blessed to have you here!

Nicki Ware

Chief Nursing Office