ATLANTA— WellStar Health System's long-time partnership with technology services company Codesigned has resulted in ground-breaking developments for health care information systems. WellStar sought Codesigned's help to design a solution in Microsoft SharePoint that would allow the System to communicate effectively during the healthcare system's Epic software roll out. Using their three-step Align, Design, and Develop process, Codesigned created Well Connected, a centralized resource for hospital administrators, doctors, and nurses. The site went live System-wide on Sunday, December 1, 2013.

The new features that Codesigned implemented with WellStar Connect served to keep communication flowing smoothly during the implementation of the Epic software and to ensure important training documents were available quickly to hospital staff. Sandar Van Laan, Codesigned's Senior SharePoint Consultant spoke of the project saying, "The Epic software rollout for WellStar hospital essentially changes every piece of software that touches any aspect of patient interaction. From check-in, to scheduling labs or tests, to storing electronic health records, to billing. It's a massive undertaking that has taken two years of hard work, preparation, and training for the WellStar administrative staff, doctors, and nurses." A focal point of the software go live was to offer hospital staff the ability to quickly and concisely communicate time-sensitive information to the thousands of medical staff involved in this system overhaul in the form of a Tips and Tricks section and Quick Start Guides. "We developed a system to provide an easy way for training staff to upload crucial documents and then to display them in an intuitive and easy-to-use library. As of four days after launch, we've uploaded nearly 400 of just these documents alone," said Van Laan.

Some of the most innovative features of the new WellStar Connect site involved the development of a workflow using Nintex Workflow and Forms. The workflow pulls documents from the old Epic site where over fifty trainers are loading and updating training materials. The workflow tracks any new or changed documents to publish or update. For new documents, a link to the source document is created in the authoring environment. For changed documents, any metadata values are updated. As part of this step, the name of the file is evaluated to see if the workflow has set it. If not, the file is given a new file name based on previously established naming rules. The result is a standardized file naming convention.

About WellStar Health System

Recognized as the fifth most integrated healthcare delivery system in the country, WellStar Health System is the one of the largest not-for-profit health systems in Georgia and serves a population of nearly 1.4 million residents in five counties. The vision of WellStar is to deliver world-class healthcare.  A national leader in the transformation of healthcare delivery, WellStar launched two initiatives in late 2012 – the Center for Health Transformation and the Georgia Health Collaborative – that will have far reaching effects on healthcare both locally and nationally.  WellStar includes WellStar Kennestone Regional Medical Center (anchored by WellStar Kennestone Hospital) and WellStar Cobb, Douglas, Paulding and Windy Hill hospitals; the WellStar Medical Group; Urgent Care Centers; Acworth Health Park; Health Place; Homecare; Hospice; Atherton Place; Paulding Nursing and Rehabilitation Center; and the WellStar Foundation. For more information, call 770-956-STAR or visit wellstar.org.

About Codesigned

Codesigned is an Atlanta-based company of SharePoint experts that specializes in creating custom SharePoint solutions. We handle all aspects of SharePoint—infrastructure planning, custom development, design, hosting, and support. Codesigned specializes in building custom applications and developing workflows and forms to automate business processes. We've worked with companies like McKesson, WellStar Health System, and McKenna, Long & Aldridge and were recently awarded the Inc. Magazine Hire Power Award as one of the fastest-growing companies in the country. As a Microsoft Gold Partner, we strive to craft solutions for today and to plan for your future with SharePoint.  For more information, visit www.codesigned.com.