The go-live was preceded by a period of about 1.5 years during which we clearly had to envisage what the restructuring of the emergency room had to entail. Unfortunately Paderborn had never been famous as a centre for emergency medicine. Luckily a study visit to several emergency rooms that are also a member of DGINA helped me to gain an insight in the workflow and in the possibilities of computerisation.
Two of the wards that I visited already worked with E.care ED and spoke very highly of it. As an inhabitant of Westfalen I am a bit suspicious by nature, but E.care immediately made a good impression. After concrete talks with Mr Van Bavel (Davy) and Mr Dens (Kris) it was also important to convince the IT department. That was in September 2012.
A little bit later we started to make concrete plans. We began with an assessment, after which the first tasks were divided. While we drew up tons of lists, the E.care assistants from Belgium were building our customised E.care application. Soon after that the first training for the so-called key users took place and then we could start by training the end users.
The go-live was locally supported by an E.care assistant and went, despite the unfavourable circumstances (high absenteeism and many patients), very smoothly. Desires to change certain things were quickly complied with, albeit after consultation with the support team. We were able to implement many of the changes ourselves on the basis of the knowledge that we had gained during the training.
Of course some people were sceptical, especially the physicians, but in the meantime everyone is convinced of the advantages that the system offers. After 1 year we have documented 15.761 files in E.care and we do not suffer from downtime whatsoever. Even during updates of the HIS we were able to use E.care further without problems. The support of the service and support team of E.care is simply fantastic, on the phone as well as per e-mail or even in person. The IT department, which was also a bit hesitating at first, does not have any reason to complain: the links are working well and the amount of support that we need remains very limited.
So all that I have to say is: thank you, E.care. You make our work much more pleasant and clear. We are already looking forward to the further cooperation.
Kind regards
Kirsten Schäfers, senior physician