Fort Hood, Texas – The Department of Defense’s new electronic health record (EHR), MHS GENESIS, launched here at Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center March 19.
CRDAMC staff, and a team of personnel, dubbed pay it forward,  from other medical treatment facilities dubbed that have already launched the system at their facilities, began working in every department throughout the main hospital and outlying clinics to incorporate information into the new system.
The goal of the pay it forward team is to provide tips, practices and the different processes put in place and used by their specific departments in their medical treatment facilities that they learned from other personnel that transitioned to the new system.
CRDAMC staff has gone through many different instructor led and online classes and scenario based trainings for almost one year preparing for this transition. The system is designed for operation with end users and super users. End users incorporate beneficiary information into the system and make sure computer generated information is correct. Super users have additional training and access to additional tools to assist end users and resolving issues.  They are also responsible for reporting end user problems that they cannot resolve.
The hospital also setup a command center, a central control point to provide key information to personnel in all main outlying areas, to help support staff with the incorporation of the system. The center holds scheduled meetings throughout the day to take on problems that the teams are having, answer questions, and provide tips and workflow instructions and to deploy support staff throughout the facility for any problems that arise.
CRDAMC’s team of healthcare workers is expecting delays in patient services, but continues to make its beneficiaries the primary focus throughout the process of incorporating the new system.
During the initial start-up of the program, which began in the early hours of the day and during the computer downtime for routine maintenance, technicians put in the workload results manually.
In the laboratory at the hospital, like other areas, lab order results for beneficiaries were uploaded into the system for doctor and staff to review.
Cpl. Michael Quinn, medical laboratory technician CRDAMC, began his normal shift by inputting those order results from the hematology side of the laboratory, like the complete blood cell count, differentiation of white blood cell count, blood coagulation and other results into the new system.
Tech. Sgt. Melissa Lambert, medical laboratory technician, from Nellis Air Force Base and part of the pay it forward team, joined the CRDAMC laboratory staff to help them with lessons learned for her medical treatment facilities launch of the system in September 2020.
 “The training wasn’t really tailored to your specific site, it’s just overall GENESIS training, they’re [the trainers] not lab people so you don’t really learn it,” said Lambert.
Appointment availability from March through June may be affected, and appointment times may increase as our hospital staff adjust to new technology and workflows. The staff appreciates beneficiary patience and understanding as they integrate the system to provide top-notch care. Additional resources are available during this time visit CRDAMC social media sites and website for updates.
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