RAMSAY HEALTH CARE: EPR Go Live IMS Maxims

A big-bang EPR go-live on IMS Maxims across 20 hospitals, 3,000+ users and 100+ cutover participants, run from one plan.

The client

Ramsay Health Care UK runs hospitals across the country. It moved 20 of them onto a new electronic patient record (EPR), IMS Maxims, in a single big-bang go-live. More than 3,000 users had to be ready on the same day, and the hospitals had to keep treating patients throughout.

The challenge: one EPR go-live, 20 hospitals, no second chance

In a big-bang EPR go-live every site switches together, so there is no pilot site to learn from once the weekend starts. The programme had to answer the questions every EPR buyer ends up asking:

• What is the business impact of the downtime on each hospital, and what is the clinical risk?
• Who does what, and when, across more than 100 people on the go-live?
• How does data move from the legacy systems into IMS Maxims, and how long does it take?
• How do the third-party suppliers fit into the same sequence as the hospitals?
• How do executives get a clear view of progress without reading task lists?

A cutover of this size cannot be run from a collection of workstream plans. It needs one cutover approach, one detailed plan and one way of reporting. That is what we built.

Our approach: the CMS Cutover Framework applied to a 20-hospital EPR go-live

We applied our cutover framework across its three phases: initialisation, preparation and execution. Five pieces of work carried the programme.

1. Cutover workshops on business impact and clinical risk

We ran cutover workshops with the hospital and programme teams to agree what the go-live meant for each area: the business impact of the downtime, the clinical risk, and the actions needed to manage both. Clinical and operational teams shaped the cutover from the start instead of receiving a plan built without them.

2. One runbook for every team

We consolidated the technical and business activities into a single runbook, the cutover detailed plan. Every task has an owner, a start time and a duration, and is written so that someone other than the expert can follow it. The cutover approach document set out the principles above it for everyone from the technical teams to the board.

3. A communication plan for 100+ participants

A communication plan told each group what it needed to know and when, with a single channel for go-live updates. Our own EPR go-live roles and responsibilities guide covers the weekend command structure in more detail.

4. Data migration from the legacy systems, optimised

We worked with the data migration teams to optimise how data moved from the legacy systems into IMS Maxims. Data is usually the largest and riskiest part of an EPR cutover, which is why we treat it as part of the cutover plan and not as a separate stream. See our data migration checklist.

5. Executive reporting and third-party coordination

Executives received clear, regular reporting built from the same plan the teams were executing. Third-party suppliers were coordinated into the same sequence as the hospital teams, so nobody needed a separate timeline.

What this case shows about EPR go-live cutover

• Scale needs one plan. With 20 hospitals, a single runbook is the only way to see dependencies between sites, suppliers and business teams.
• Clinical risk belongs in the cutover plan. Workshops on business impact and clinical risk put patient-facing decisions in front of the people who own them before the weekend.
• Executives need a summary, not a task list. Reporting from one source keeps go/no-go decisions fast.
• Third parties are part of the plan. Suppliers who sit outside the programme timeline are a common source of weekend surprises.

To see how go-live readiness is judged, read our EPR go-live go/no-go criteria template. For a second EPR example, read the Alder Hey Meditech Expanse case study, or browse all cutover case studies.

Planning a multi-site EPR go-live?

Our cutover delivery and advisory services cover EPR programmes from early planning to hypercare. If your go-live is dated and you want an independent view of the cutover, book a free cutover health check with a senior cutover manager.