Cerner? Bring it on!
Once you start using an electronic patient record when the Clinical & Systems Transformation (CST) is implemented, you won’t want to go back to paper, says Lyndsay Rowland, residential care coordinator at Hilltop House (HTH) in Squamish.
“I felt like I was going back 20 years in time when I started at Lions Gate Hospital in 2013,” says Lyndsay, who worked as an RN on the Neurology/Neurosurgery unit before taking on her current position in Squamish, where she lives. “That’s why I am looking forward to the new system coming on line. When I heard it was coming, I wasn’t worried at all. It was implemented a little differently at University Hospital but it was the same Cerner system.”
Lyndsay had previously worked at the University Hospital in London, Ontario where Cerner had been successfully implemented.
Lyndsay understands the stress that some staff may be feeling as the go-live date approaches, the nervousness of using a new system and how it might affect workflow.
“It’s super easy once you learn it, but like everything there is a learning curve anytime you introduce something new,” says Lyndsay, who is coordinating the work flows for all staff and is described as an “awesome asset for HTH.” “Even though I hadn’t used the system since I left Ontario, the training has been like a refresher course. It all came back to me quickly.”
Working in residential care means Lyndsay won’t have as much interaction with the system as acute staff, but Cerner will still improve care for residential clients.
“It will impact us in the layout of blood work, which will make it easier to trend blood work,” Lyndsay explains. “You can compare blood work from three months ago to last week on the same screen. You can see the highs and lows and have a visual of what is the normal range instantly. It will also be nice to see documentation from previous encounters when residents return from hospital. What the system does really is allow you to focus on the patient, not technology.”
CST classroom training begins April 3 for Hilltop House staff.
For more information about CST, visit our.cstproject.ca.