Southcoast Health
Challenge
When Southcoast executives chose to migrate to the Epic™ Electronic Health Record (EHR), they knew that an initiative of this magnitude would require some outside assistance in several key areas. Not the least of these would be the considerable challenge of successfully communicating the significant, impending change to their employees. After learning of Brandigo’s extensive healthcare experience, they reached out for help.
Solution
Southcoast chose to partner with Brandigo in several key areas, not the least of which was to develop and drive the process of creating and implementing their EHR implementation communications strategy. After initial brainstorming workshop sessions with the Southcoast Epic Team to identify the organization’s goals and objectives, a comprehensive communications strategy and tactical plan were developed to support those defined objectives and delivering specifics regarding timelines and processes. Serving as the information-sharing hub of our initiative was the Epic Resource Center, Brandigo designed and developed an internal communications portal consisting of: - Timelines schedules and Go-Live dates - Audience-specific blogs, often written by Brandigo - FAQs - A question-submission forum - Various timely and important alerts - Training schedules - Go-Live-specific information, tip sheets, and more In addition, a Southcoast Epic Communications Team was organized, comprised of a cross-section of Southcoast staff and physicians, as well as the Brandigo Southcoast Team. Brandigo made arrangements to lead and facilitate bi-monthly status meetings where team members from both organizations were able to collaborate to keep processes moving forward and the Epic migration on track. Most significant among Brandigo’s roles in the Southcoast Epic initiative were the content strategy, creation, and management contributions. For any endeavor requiring change management and organization-wide communication, compelling content is the engine that drives the ship. Brandigo’s Healthcare Content Team worked closely with the Southcoast Epic Team to determine messaging topics and the appropriate stakeholder audience for each. Then Brandigo’s writers created regular, ongoing blogs in the voice of Southcoast leadership, emails and assorted printed materials targeted toward the different internal stakeholders. It’s not just internal communications that Brandigo delivered for Southcoast. The team also helped them with their messaging to patients, particularly around MyChart, Southcoast’s patient-facing Epic component. Through a series of blogs, posters, pull-up banners, brochures, press releases and animated videos created by Brandigo, it’s now easy and enjoyable for patients to learn about the new EHR and the many beneficial ways it will affect their care and treatment.
Results
The success of the program may be measured by employee engagement, which is reflected in the usage of the communications portal 43,734 unique site visits 119,409 site interactions 337,528 recorded page views The significant level of engagement means that employees in the Southcoast Health network have used the site as it was intended and have benefited from the information located there as the organization migrated to the new system
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