Early this year work commenced on Western Health’s EMR Phase 2 project, the largest digital health venture ever undertaken by this organisation.  In the Western Health sites which currently use the EMR, this next phase will extend the EMR functionality to areas that are currently needing to swap between electronic systems or between electronic and paper processes.

Since late June, hundreds of clinical and administrative representatives from the areas who will use the new EMR functionalities have attended workshops to advise on the design and build, and either validate the design or ask for further refinements. I greatly appreciate the significant input these staff are providing.  Their expertise and their thorough step by step consideration is important to ensure the EMR supports Best Care.

Recently, our Cerner EMR colleagues have experienced unexpected staffing challenges which have led to delays in the EMR build for some clinical areas.

The Project Director, Executive Team and myself have held a number of discussions with Cerner regarding these challenges and have agreed to reschedule the commencement of the next round of workshops (Sprint 4) to Monday 29th November 2021. This will mean that the EMR Phase 2.1 Go-Live will be shifted to the second quarter of 2023. As I have always said we will only ever Go-Live with our EMR when it is clinically safe to do so.

Please feel free to watch this short Introduction to EMR Phase 2 video to learn more about this exciting venture.  Through the delivery of EMR Phase 2, and associated digital health projects, we will endeavor to elevate Western Health to fully digital health status, empower our staff and patients with information and deliver on our vision of Connecting Best Care.

Thank you for your continued support for this cornerstone in our Digital Health aspirations.  If you have any queries please contact Lily Liu, Director, Digital Health – Lily.Liu@wh.org.au

Regards,

Russell