Standard Changes for Epic EHR

[Blue]

Hello,

Can anyone describe how their organization has created Standard Changes that are pre-authorized for Epic EHR changes. Our internal Epic team feel there is no use case to create standard changes for any of their work.

Thanks

[Punahele Tanne1]

We are currently in discussion if EMP updates are exempt from requiring a formal request process and could just be completed via a Standard Change.  If successful, we will identify other repeatable processes that can be trusted without needing oversight.

[TimTango]

Our process is a combination of Type of Work and INI

We reviewed historical changes and determined low-risk changes that hadn’t caused issues.

Examples: Schedule updates, Adding billing codes, preference lists, DEV records for device integration.

We recently did a full review of the Epic changes historically and provided guide rails to help determine what could go as a standard vs. normal.

We also made some decisions on what would always be a normal change (ex. Security INIs).

We also use a small set of senior analysts to help review and then have our CAB approve new templates before enabling them.

Ultimately each organization has a certain risk-tolerance – I would start off with the teams with a few templates for some of the really low risk items and then build a group of “change” agents to develop some strategies to build it out and include management and leadership to support and ultimately approve them.

[LeighAnnB]

I’m piggybacking on TimTango’s post to share some examples from our organization that might help show how Standard Changes can work for Epic-related tasks, even if your internal team isn’t totally convinced.

Here are some types of Standard Changes we’ve put in place:

• Medication label updates handled by our Willow team

• Printer and workstation record updates managed by our Systems team

• Payer and plan address changes for our Patient Access and Financials teams

• Work queue user assignment updates across teams using work queues

• Bed activations, inactivations, and unit changes for the Patient Access team

• Fee schedule updates for the Financials team

• Preference list updates across multiple specialties

For us, what makes a change a good candidate for Standard Change is any process that's repeatable, predictable, and low-risk. Take medication label updates, for example - they happen pretty regularly, like when a supplier changes. The process is the same every time, and if something goes wrong, it’s easy to fix without causing any big problems for our pharmacies.

These Standard Changes help us speed up routine work while still keeping things under control and transparent. And probably the most important part - our Change Advisory Board (CAB) actually creates AND approves the Standard Change templates ahead of time, so these changes are pre-approved by the folks responsible before they ever happen. That way, we get the right balance of efficiency and accountability.