Department of Medicine Weekly Roundup - April 10

Please be reminded that Unity Health will be receiving our first Epic upgrade in less than two weeks. During the upgrade, all sites will enter a period of downtime on Apr 13, 1:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m.  

The Project Connect team is holding onsite booths to share information about downtime with staff, physicians and learners.

Please encourage your team members to drop by if they have any questions or would like to learn more about downtime: 

• Michael’s Hospital (North entrance to Marketeria at 6CC) - 12:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. on April 3, 4 and 7 

Here are some other ways you can help to prepare your teams for the upcoming upgrade and downtime: 

Preparing for the Upgrade 

• Share the key takeaways and changes from the overview session and workgroup/area-specific sessions with your team. Recordings and materials are available on the Epic Resources page on UnityNet
• Share the Upgrade Playbook with your team so they know the key changes that are coming their way with the upgrade

Preparing for Downtime 

• Remind your team members to complete the Epic downtime e-learning on Elevate. They can self-enroll to complete the training. *Links directly to the course and does not require any registration and/or enrollment
• Ensure downtime binders and downtime BCA (Business Continuity Access) computers can be easily accessed on your unit. Encourage your team to review the downtime binders ahead of time
• Ensure your team is familiar with the Epic downtime procedures for your unit
• Ensure your team members know where to find the Epic Read-Only and Epic Downtime BCA Web applications on their workstation. These two applications will be available on all workstations during the downtime
• Ensure your unit has a sufficient supply of paper forms to be used during downtime. Consider preparing downtime packages in advance
• Complete charting and orders ahead of downtime to ensure Epic is up-to-date prior to downtime
• Just before downtime, print medication administration records (MAR) and other relevant documents from Epic Downtime BCA Web. Print extra patient demographic labels to be used during downtime

Watch this video to see how Cameron, one of our Credential Trainers, gets ready for our first Epic downtime at Unity Health!