Effective Communication Paved the Way to a Successful Lovell FHCC Go-Live

Dana Crudo, FEHRM Communications Lead

At the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center (Lovell FHCC), the Federal Electronic Health Record Modernization (FEHRM) office helped converge and standardize different processes, workflows, and materials to enable the Department of Defense (DOD) and Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to deploy the same federal electronic health record (EHR) together for the first time. The deployment resulted in clinicians no longer needing to toggle between multiple EHR systems; instead, the patient record is available in one federal EHR. The deployment not only benefits the patients and staff in North Chicago but all sites within the broader health care system that need joint solutions to effectively deliver care.

To ensure Lovell FHCC deployment success, the FEHRM chaired 12 working groups, bringing together key subject matter experts and stakeholders from various organizations (e.g., DOD, VA, and vendors) to address items that required joint decisions and execution. These working groups proved critical in integrating efforts, overcoming challenges, and delivering solutions to complex problems. The Lovell FHCC Communications Workgroup serves as a leading example of this effort to align capabilities against joint challenges. The FEHRM led the cross-departmental workgroup to identify joint communications opportunities, converge and standardize communications activities, and bridge communications differences and gaps across the Departments and Lovell FHCC to create success. Workgroup members teamed up to:

• Integrate, develop, and distribute beneficiary, end-user, and enterprise communications that applied to DOD and VA.
• Develop joint templates, style guides, and business rules including an integrated template for daily end-user emails that responded to site resource requests and trends during go-live.
• Create collaborative workspaces and websites accessible to both DOD and VA users, including a Lovell FHCC Daily Messaging Resource page that housed daily updates and additional resources for end users.
• Produce crisis and go-live communications plans that established processes, roles, and responsibilities across the Departments and site.
• Collect stories, testimonials, quotes, and photos to promote the deployment success, helping to maintain morale and boost confidence and support.
• Ensure concurred joint press releases, media roundtables, and articles to highlight the collaborative achievements.

This unprecedented collaboration between the FEHRM, DOD, VA, and vendors allowed Lovell FHCC to benefit from the communications best practices, expertise, and experiences of multiple organizations and reduced duplication of efforts and confusion for the site. It helped build a foundation for future collaborative efforts related to patient portal, sustainment, system upgrades, and system status communications as well as determining federal EHR requirements together.