This post is a continuation of my article posted on Tuesday, January 10th, “5 Secrets to Successful Implementation (Part 1),” discussing secrets and lessons learned for successfully implementing your new electronic documentation system.

From state to state and county to county, agencies are complex and dynamic.

Agencies are now, more than ever, offering very specialized services to various populations.

Documentation systems struggle to keep up with all these specialized programs and offer solutions.

If you are lucky, you will find yourself using EHR software that allows you the ability to personalize to your agency needs.

What that means is that as your agency changes, YOU control the ability to make those changes when YOU need them.

Which brings us to the next secret to a 7230616 l resized 600successful implementation.

Secret #3: Create a Plan for Your Agency.

You must plan to spend some time looking at your programs to see how you will need to personalize your documentation system to meet their needs.

You will also need to make decisions for your agency and programs on the process of implementation itself.

Here are some questions you might want to ask:

  • Is the data you need captured?

Whether you need to report certain data at set intervals or if your data will be audited, you need to review your documentation system to make sure the data you must have is captured.

You will also need to communicate this to your users so they are completing the data that needs to be compiled.

Will you need to build custom fields into your documentation system or will you continue with your old forms?

    • Will you have all your users trained or will you train-the-trainer?

    • How often will your implementation team need to meet?

Find out who is monitoring the users and identifying if there are any users that are struggling.

It will also be important to know how often the users meet to discuss concerns and problems being encountered, as 10499134 l resized 600well as how their issues will be addressed or cataloged.

  • How will you keep your users updated?

Create desktop aids and/or Go Live Instructions.

Apprehension is minimized if users know what the plan is.

  •  Will your agency Go Live all together or would it be best split up and/or staggered?

These are only some suggestions of questions that may need to be posed during your implementation planning.

If you do your homework at the beginning, create a plan for your agency and communicate your plan with your entire agency, you will find less resistance and fewer resistors.

This will help you on your way to implementation success!

Check back later this week for the last of the 5 Secrets to Successful Implementation!