Hat's Off! A Successful OB Electronic Medical Record Implementation

Hat’s Off!  A Successful OB Electronic Medical Record Implementation 

Many healthcare organizations are struggling to adopt computerized nursing documentation systems into their patient care areas.  Woman’s Hospital delivers over 8000 babies each year and is a Level III Regional Referral Obstetrics and Neonatal facility.  Implementing a computerized documentation system is important to Woman’s Hospital to improve the effectiveness of communication among caregivers, increase patient safety, and access patient data instantly. 

The five steps of success identified during our implementation of an obstetrical electronic medical record (EMR) are: preparation, education, motivation, recognition and validation.  The objective of this presentation is to share our project timeline and describe the steps that led to a successful implementation.   

The theme for our project was “Hat’s off to you on the Kickoff” and creative ideas were utilized to increase hospital wide awareness.  Phase One of the implementation impacted three separate nursing units: Antepartum, Labor/Delivery and Mother/Baby.  Clinical areas were decorated with pink hats and cowboy boots to encourage the staff throughout the process.  To determine the success of implementation, surveys were distributed to end-users one month after go-live and 82% of the staff were comfortable using the system.   

In keeping with the conference theme, lessons learned from this implementation will enhance and empower the many voices caring for women and newborns.