WellStar Connect Subject Matter Experts (SMEs): Helping Shape our System’s Future

Since late August, approximately 300 WellStar team members have been hard at work helping to adapt, design and develop WellStar Connect, our EpicCare customized electronic medical record (EMR) system. These subject matter experts (SMEs) were selected to represent departments/areas with regard to the EMR’s content, workflow and policy.

WellStar Connect will allow for a single patient record across the care continuum – from the physician office to the hospital and event to the patient’s home. It will be world-class information technology – and will transform our System, providing a ‘one patient, one record’ approach that will improve the coordination of care, increase patient safety and enhance the patient experience.

SMEs provide input and attend validation sessions to review and react to specific applications.

“Validation sessions are intense!” said Vedetta Caldwell, operations manager, WellStar Medical Group, Cardiovascular Medicine, a practice management (front office) SME. “To prepare for the sessions, we list every report known to man – current and dream reports. We create flow charts for current work, review flow charts for future work and tweak them till they squeak.

“During the sessions, we review the process, ask questions and review again. Then comes the vote: We hold up green plates to indicate it’s a go, yellow to indicate ‘needs tweaking,’ and red means ‘no way – back to the drawing board.’”

Kimberly Penn, RN, clinical nurse educator, 7 Blue Cardiovascular Progressive Care Unit, WellStar Kennestone Hospital, is a SME providing the bedside nurse perspective.

“I’ve been able to share how we document everything from assessments and procedures to medication reconciliation and administration,” said Penn. “I know what has worked successfully and what has been a rocky, frustrating road. I’ve given feedback on our best practices and how we can integrate what we now do manually into an automated system so we can be proactive instead of reactive.

“The validation sessions are amazing. The teams are multidisciplinary and the collaboration between everyone from nurses to physicians and Care Coordination to Pharmacy really forces us to see how our workflow impacts each other.”

SMEs and Physician Champions feel they are making valuable contributions to world-class healthcare.
“The true winner will be the patient,” said Penn. “To be a world-class System, we need world-class technology. I absolutely feel my contribution is valuable – I am not just making suggestions from my experience, I am taking note of requests from other Kennestone team members.”

“I am proud of how all WellStar departments are coming together to come up with the best workflow for our patients,” said Caldwell. “The project requires everyone’s participation, as we strive to improve processes on every level.”

“The decision to adopt Epic is perhaps the most significant and profoundly important decision made by WellStar in my 27-year involvement with the System,” said Tom Gearhard, M.D., Ambulatory Physician Champion. “As a member of the WellStar Board of Trustees I had the privilege to participate in the selection of Epic. In my leadership role within the WellStar Medical Group I saw the potential of using Epic to dramatically improve communication, standardization of patient care and adoption of best practices by all WellStar providers.

“As a family physician, I saw that Epic is patient centric and places the health and safety of patients as its primary driver. Revolutionary? Transformational? Absolutely! I did not hesitate in agreeing to be the Ambulatory Physician Champion, as I felt this was an unparalleled opportunity to help make WellStar's goal of world-class healthcare a reality.”