Guest Post: 'Twas the night before "Go-Live"

by Darice M. Grzybowski, MA, RHIA, FAHIMA

It’s the end of the year, and many of us have been on the fast track to EHRs and EDMS installation, so we pause this month for a little levity and to honor all those working so hard behind the scenes. Happy holidays to all the brave health information professionals continuing to blaze the paths of progress in automated medical record documentation!

‘Twas the night before Go-Live, when all through the hall

Not a PC was whirring, waiting for the install;
The scanners and printers were plugged in with care,
In hopes that the discharges would soon be there;
The employees were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of online records danced in their heads;
And the HIM director thought, “This is a snap,
With good forms preparation I don’t see any traps.”

When in the IT department there arose such a clatter,
She sprang from her desk to see what was the matter.
Away to the servers she flew like a flash,
Tore open the e-mail log and reviewed the cache. The radiology interface had failed to go,And the count of report input was way, way below.
When, what to her wondering eyes should appear,
But an application specialist, and a consultant or two,
With a patch on the network and a set-up file brand-new.
She knew in a moment this must be the time.

More rapid than eagles the documents they came,
Doctors whistled, and shouted, and signed them by name;
“Now, CT! Now, X-Ray! Now, Nuclear Scan!On, History!
On, Impression! On, Assessment and Plan!
To the top of the file! To the top of the wall!
Let’s prep and index and QC them all!”

By station and work queues the images did fly,
When met with an obstacle, again they did try.
To create the legal health record was their main goal,
With new job description and processes, all knew their role.
And then, in a twinkling, the paper receded.
The transition to paperless was almost completed.
As they took the last count from the daily discharge list,
And reconciled the COLD feed with a flick of the wrist.

They knew that the journey was not quite done,
As access and release meant ongoing fun;
Long-term record storage, archive, and destruction,
Still would be handled as part of their function.

But the coders and analysts, their work was now merry!
Multiple requests for studies were no longer so scary!
AHIMA had prepared them and HCPro guided,
With publications like Medical Records Briefing beside us.
From paper to paperless and the paper between;
With perseverance and standards and staffing now lean,
The joy of a CPR clear and concise;
Without the restrictions that choked like a vise,
So here’s our advice for those struggling to automate:
Take the first step and begin to progress,
Towards a pathway to EHR and EDMS;
When ARRA funding nods the CFO’s head,
This will help you to know you had nothing to dread;
So don’t waste much time, and get straight to work,
’Cause there’s work flow to analyze—no time to shirk.
You’ll not regret the benefits it brings,
And the medical staff your praises will sing;
So spring to your post, but do your research first,
‘Cause you don’t want surprises that bring you the worst.
HITECH and HIPAA, and RACs sure do test,
But at HIMentors we wish you the best:
“Happy Go-Live to all, and to all a good year-end rest.”

Editor’s note: This poem was published in the November 2010 edition of Medical Records Briefing. Grzybowski adapted it from the December 2007 issue of Electronic Health Records Briefing. She is the president of HIMentors, LLC, focused on HIM operations, education, best practices, EHR/EDMS implementation. This information was up-to-date at the time of this article's original release.