Implementation Planning

Arkive manufactured Anesthesia Information Management Systems designed to record all of the anesthesia related activities that occur during surgery. The rapid pace of events in the OR makes it difficult to take accurate notes in a timely manner. Legal and medical problems are caused by this lack of accurate information.

In the user environment for these systems, the client needed to install networked systems throughout tightly scheduled operating rooms and hospital data centers. A range of audiences needed to be trained, and the whole system had to go live in a phased manner.

A 5-phase Implementation Plan was developed to cover all activities on the vendor and customer side over the 4-month implementation cycle. The plan included a series of checklists to verify that each action was completed by the assigned staff, and that the entire team was ready to move to the next set of activities.

ALARIS Medical Systems

Situation

ALARIS manufactures a growing range of intelligent infusion pumps. These pumps gather patient data for continual analysis by hospital Pharmacy and Clinical staff. The pace of upgrades is rapid, and in each hospital, an upgrade or new installation can involve hundreds or thousands of individual pumps. Staging these actions, and making sure that each area of the hospital receives the pumps it needs, is a complex process.

Actions

Two Implementation Plans were developed - one for New Installations, and one for Upgrades. Field and Technical Support staff were involved in the entire development process, which was Flowchart and Checklist based.

iMetrikus develops and maintains a unique website for maintenance of Electronic Medical Records. Used by patients and caregivers, it provides a needed resource for people with chronic diseases, from Asthma to Diabetes and HIV/AIDS.

When the system is implemented by a new hospital system or pharmaceutical company, it requires both technical efforts (system and server setup) and training (clinicians, end users, administration).

Our Implementation Plan provided dual track support for iMetrikus clients and end users. Each audience had to prepare their system (servers on the client side, PCs for the end users) and then learn how to use them.