Sprints and Workshops

What is the purpose of the workshops?

The series of workshops (also known as “sprints”) are how we are managing the design and build of the EMR Phase 2.1 solution. The purpose of the workshops is to receive input and feedback from Western Health clinicians and other staff, which will ensure the EMR supports clinical workflows and best practice care.

How are the workshops structured?

As part of the design, build and validate phase of the project we run a series of workshops (sprints) to gather the information and decisions required and then the Cerner team (the Western Health EMR vendor) go away and build that part of the EMR. Then they come back to us and ask us to validate what they have built based on the information we provided them with.

There are eight ‘sprints’ in total over a twelve month period, with each sprint comprising of a number of workshops. Each clinical stream or project undertakes the series of workshops at the same time, usually over a three to five week period. For example, 257 workshops were held during Sprints 1 – 3. For Sprint 4, 111 workshops will be held over a three week period, for the whole project (e.g. all 6 clinical streams/projects).

Every sprint includes an ‘introduce’ workshop, but the associated ‘validation’ workshop may not occur until a few months/sprints later, as the Cerner team need time to build what we have designed.

What is your role as a participant in a workshop?

You have been invited to the workshop(s) as a representative of your cohort to provide guidance and expertise to the EMR Project Team and Cerner (the EMR vendor) for your area. As a participant in the workshop, we ask that you:

  • Ask questions about any content demonstrated or presented to verify your understanding of the capabilities of the Cerner EMR solution
  • Answer any questions the Cerner consultants may have about elements of the future state design presented
  • View and as necessary validate the information presented
  • Highlight any gaps or fit-for-purpose concerns regarding the proposed future state design

Western Health has determined that decisions regarding the future state of the EMR should be prioritised based on the following hierarchy of benefit, so please keep these in mind when participating in the workshop:

  1. Patient & family
  2. Hospital
  3. Department
  4. Simple and standardised system design and function
  5. Reducing variation in clinical care where appropriate

Is this is your first time attending a workshop?

Please reach out to the Project Manager prior to the workshop so that you can be briefed on the progress to date, any relevant previous decisions that have been made and to talk through your role at the workshop(s).

What is involved in an Introduce workshop?

In an Introduce workshop Cerner will introduce a topic/concept and provide a front end demonstration of the Model workflow, before presenting the design decisions that will be required. If applicable, workflows will be shown in Workflow Designer.

Data Collection Workbooks (DCWs) will be introduced and, where required, a demonstration will be provided of the associated build tools to provide additional context to the data collection.

Some sessions may include working time to complete data collection and agree on workflow updates.

Workshop participants are expected to be familiar with the current workflows relevant to the topic/content for their work group.  It is also expected that participants are able to make decisions around how these should look in the future state.

Cerner aims to have 60-80% of the data collection and decision making completed in the workshop.

In between Introduce and Validation workshops, data collection will be completed and signed off by the relevant decision makers (e.g. workgroup session participants/Clinical Council/Steering Committee etc).

The Cerner team will then complete the future state build for demonstration and endorsement at the relevant Validation workshop.

What is involved in a Validation workshop?

Validation workshops ideally include the same participants from the associated Introduce workshop.

In this workshop, the Cerner team will demonstrate the future state workflow and build, while also documenting issues or changes and the impact of these.

Participants will then log in and complete appropriate workflow steps using the future state build generated from the Introduce workshops. You will then approve and validate the build for that concept or topic and approve the workflow in Workflow Designer.

Changes will be documented and tracked using the formal change control review process, managed by the Western Health and Cerner EMR Project Teams.

What happens after the workshop?

Following the workshops, Cerner will use the information obtained to develop or further refine the relevant aspects of the future state solution. Follow-up workshops may be required and these will be scheduled separately.

Where necessary, the EMR Project Team will identify aspects of the future state design from the workshops which need further consultation and direction both with and from Western Health governance groups.

Please don’t hesitate to contact the Project Manager, your Divisional Director or Operations Manager should you require further information or have any queries or concerns.

How can you find out what was decided at a workshop?

At the end of each sprint the EMR Project Teams produce a summary of the key decisions made and any outstanding actions or decisions that are to be made which are shared with the relevant clinical areas’ leadership. If you would like a copy please reach out to the relevant Project Manager.  Their contact details can be located on the Key Contacts page of this site.