Remote go-live support and videoconferencing keeps clinical information and transformation initiative on track to deliver full benefits of digital health strategy
InterSystems, a creative data technology provider dedicated to helping customers solve the most critical scalability, interoperability, and speed problems, today announced that leading private healthcare provider MercyAscot has gone live with InterSystems TrakCare’s Patient Administration and Billing functionality during New Zealand’s COVID-19 lockdown, with a full clinical deployment to follow.
The final preparations and go-live itself were supported remotely using videoconferencing and other tools to complete the first phase of the organisation’s ambitious digital transformation. The virtual go-live was a global first for InterSystems, and MercyAscot is one of the first organisations worldwide to deploy TrakCare on the Microsoft Azure Stack hybrid cloud computing platform.
MercyAscot’s digital health strategy will see the InterSystems TrakCare unified healthcare information system manage both patient administration and clinical care based on a shared electronic medical record (EMR). It will provide actionable insights from patient data, transforming care delivery and streamlining operational and clinical processes.
“Our vision is to not only deliver high quality care but also to understand the outcomes for our patients and be able to act on that knowledge for continuous improvement,” said Sarah Gardner, General Manager – Improvement, Quality & Safety for MercyAscot. “TrakCare gives us the foundation that allows us to deliver innovative care across our patient journey.”
TrakCare provides insight into the patient journey and supports improvements in customer experience. “With the new system we have transparency of information across teams which in turn gives us opportunities to streamline and improve processes,” said Gardner. “Everyone can be involved, from the administration team to the nurses on the floor.”
The deployment aligns with MercyAscot’s cloud-first strategy. “TrakCare on the Microsoft Azure Stack future proofs the organisation – it gives us a platform to build on and expand,” said Gardner.
MercyAscot chose to go live during New Zealand’s COVID-19 lockdown when many staff were not onsite to complete training. “On the surface it would seem an unusual decision, but we had done a lot of preparation pre-lockdown,” said Gardner. “We knew that if there was less time between that preparation and go live, we’d have a higher likelihood that our staff would retain all of the hard work they’d already completed. In fact, the longer we waited, the more difficult it would have been.”
InterSystems and MercyAscot made use of Microsoft Teams and other tools to facilitate communication and collaboration between staff working from home in Australia and New Zealand. Remote training and other innovations helped to create a bulletproof virtual go-live process. InterSystems used MercyAscot’s systems support tools as well as its own to triage and cross-check support requests and ensure both project teams stayed in sync.
There were also additional personnel assigned, making use of InterSystems’ global resources, and careful scheduling. If someone dropped out of a virtual meeting or chat stream because of connectivity issues, someone else was available to take their place as part of a redundancy plan.
“There were some project implications, especially around final training, but we were able to manage those sessions remotely so that staff were fresh and prepared for go live,” said Gardner. “The MercyAscot and InterSystems teams stepped up to the challenge, amidst a trying time, working together in ways that were new to many of them. Their willingness to do so, and the resilience they showed during lockdown was key to us achieving the great start that we did.”
“Healthcare organisations around the world have been disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic,” said Darren Jones, Regional Director, Customer Relations at InterSystems. “Although the lockdown in New Zealand was one of the world’s most restrictive, MercyAscot collaborated with InterSystems to find new ways of working and keep their strategic plans on track. Congratulations to them and the InterSystems team on rising to the challenge!”
About InterSystems
InterSystems is the engine behind the world’s most important applications. In healthcare, finance, government, and other sectors where lives and livelihoods are at stake, InterSystems is the power behind what matters™. Founded in 1978, InterSystems is a privately held company headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts (USA), with offices worldwide, and its software products are used daily by millions of people in more than 80 countries. For more information, visit InterSystems.com/au.
