Concord Hospital Case Study
Repeatable Standardized Testing Process
Concord Hospital implemented Cerner’s clinical and revenue cycle applications in December 2017 and had many challenges with workflows. This led to many post-live fixes and optimizations, which meant lots of testing and retesting.
Concord Hospital was not only concerned with the burden this was placing on their analysts but was also looking to bring the testing to the subject matter experts (SMEs) to reduce workflow challenges going forward. They were looking for a repeatable, standardized testing process.
Concord Hospital was already utilizing MAKE Solutions’ Strategic Planning services, so it was natural that they would look to MAKE Solutions’ TransIT to improving testing quality and outcomes.
All Work Had to Be Done in Less Than 8 Months Before the First Testing Event
When Concord Hospital embarked upon their TransIT implementation project, it was with a fair amount of trepidation amongst the analyst team due to previous re-write and re-design of the integrated test scripts. They had been asked to build and design the integrated test scripts in three different formats over the previous two years: in Cerner Testing Builder during implementation; in Word documents; and finally in Excel spreadsheets.
The TransIT project kicked off on May 20, 2019, with little room for error. The ask of this project was substantial – a six-month commitment to improve the quality of 20 integration test scripts, make the scripts easier to maintain, and add enough detail to enable SMEs to participate in testing. All this with a requirement to complete necessary work before the first integrated testing event for the Cerner upgrade, January 3, 2020.
Committing analyst, Testing Coordinator and Project Manager time each Monday afternoon was critical to the success of the project. Approval of the scripts was challenging to obtain. This is attributed to the number of competing priorities that were placed on the analyst team. Ultimately, all team members were able to complete a review and approval of the scripts prior to the first round of integrated testing.
What Concord's Team Members Say
"We owe it to our clients to be using TransIT Testing Tool. They need to know we've everything possible to ensure success.
TransIT was successfully used for multiple rounds of integrated testing
Thirteen analysts received a two-day TransIT User training class in June 2019. Four received an additional one-day TransIT Administrator class.
The build of test scripts in the TransIT application is not a skill that is quickly mastered, but one that occurs over time. The Concord Hospital analyst team are gaining that mastery and successfully using the TransIT application.
The TransIT application has been successfully used for two rounds of integrated testing and was used by a subset of teams for system testing. This application will also be used for regression testing.
What concord's Team Members Say
"There are two fundamental things needed to reduce the burden on IT: one is a help desk, and the other is a testing system. We chose TransIT as our testing system.
The Benefits of Using TransIT
- TransIT allowed us to add depth to the bench for testing. SMEs and resources from Clinical System Education teams have been pulled into integrated testing using TransIT.
- Allowed us to create a process that is both repeatable and standardized. This has been demonstrated during two integrated testing events that TransIT has been used for
- Efficiency gains were realized, because testing completed more quickly with TransIT.
- With TransIT scenarios are updated either in real time, or shortly after a testing event... anything that is missed is added for the next round of testing
- Steps documented in TransIT outline processes in detail, most including step-by-step instructions... rather than relying on staff memory.
- Decentralized approach to testing, which has created an IT labor savings for room set up/break down.
- Improvement in the communication process through use of the TransIT Testing Dashboards.
- Integrated testing has been shortened from 11 business days to 7.5 business days.
- TransIT facilitates mostly remote testing
What concord's Team Members Say
"We've seen a big benefit from TransIT in reducing the time and effort it takes to test."
In the future the use of TransIT will be expanded to include other Cerner and non-Cerner system testing.
About Concord Hospital
Concord Hospital, located in Concord, New Hampshire, is an affiliate of Capital Region Health Care which includes Concord Hospital Regional Visiting Nurse Association, Riverbend Community Mental Health and related affiliates. Partnerships include the Orthopaedics Surgery Center, Concord Endoscopy Center, Concord Ambulatory Surgery Center, Concord Eye Surgery Center, Concord Imaging Center and others enhance our capability as a regionally integrated healthcare delivery system.
Concord Hospital specializes in cardiac care, urologic care, cancer care, orthopaedics and women’s health services. It has been verified as one of only three Level II Trauma Centers in New Hampshire.
Concord Hospital has national accreditation from DNV Healthcare, the newest and first Medicare-approved hospital accreditation program that integrates the ISO 9001 quality management system with the Medicare hospital standards.