Welcome to the final installment of our three-part blog series examining the evolving landscape of manual EHR and third-party application testing in healthcare.
In Part One, we highlighted the significant challenges of manual EHR and third-party application testing. We focused on how these issues impact employee hours, morale, and other elements of a healthcare organization’s operations, like patient safety and financial performance.
Part Two took a closer look at the specific case of UNC Health and shared key lessons learned as they developed an in-house automated testing system to accommodate acquisitions and growth, before recognizing that a partnership with SureTest, an established provider, was a better course of action.
In Part Three, we dive into the solution crafted by SureTest for UNC Health. We will explore how SureTest designed and implemented an advanced testing automation system tailored to UNC Health’s needs. This final installment will reveal the reasoning behind the solution and showcase the tangible results achieved, illustrating how an automated solution transformed UNC Health’s testing processes and improved overall efficiency.
UNC Health’s Testing Transformation
Here’s an overview of how the testing automation system was developed with UNC Health:
THE CUSTOM UNC HEALTH TESTING SOLUTION | |
OVERVIEW | The Phase One strategy was developed to demonstrate value and gain buy-in from the broader EHR inpatient team before expanding the program. The successful outcome of the first phase supported the ROI business case that UNC Health used to obtain funding for the partnership with SureTest for their SureManage™ Solution. |
SUREMANAGE™ CORE INFRASTRUCTURE | SureMethod® Framework supports development and maintenance to continually test systems and applications that constantly change and require ongoing regression testing. The SureWorks® Library is an extensive collection of automated test scripts that jumpstarts the speed of customized development. |
CUSTOMIZED FOR UNC HEALTH WORKFLOWS | SureTest created a UNC Health workflow-specific automation library, their SurePersona® Engine, that transitioned UNC from manual testing to fully managed test automation. In the initial implementation phase, SureTest’s team quickly orchestrated the workflow capture process, documenting multiple end-to-end outpatient test scripts (patient journeys) comprising 200 workflows, and three additional end-to-end inpatient scripts. UNC Health’s manual testing process included embedding third-party application workflows within the manual test scripts, so SureTest developed and implemented automation workflows for Epic and third-party systems like Elekta Mosaiq, Optum, GE HealthCare Muse, and more. |
Intelligent Testing Automation:
Results with the UNC Health Testing Program
Stage One
The results of the UNC Health test automation system were quick and measurable. The success achieved in the first phase of script development demonstrated the value of the methodology to the inpatient team and the leadership of UNC Health. The baseline “before” in terms of time commitment to testing looked like this:
| 25+ Team members engage in testing | 8 Testing cycles per year, each cycle lasting 2 weeks (16 weeks total) | 75% of staff time during these cycles were dedicated solely to manual testing |
In the initial phase of automation, the 25+ IT team members who were previously tasked with manual testing reclaimed those testing hours, along with the equivalent costs. That enabled the UNC Health team to focus on other strategic initiatives for the organization.
“Even the utility scripts have been helpful to us; sometimes, I get requests for 20, 30, or even 50 patients to load, which could take me half a day or more,” said a UNC health analyst. “Because of the automation SureTest built and maintains for us, I no longer have to do that.”
Stage Two
When the partnership between UNC Health and SureTest began Phase Two, it included automating additional Epic inpatient test case scenarios and substantially expanding the testing scope. As a result of the fully implemented test automation machine, UNC Health is:
- Saving at least 17,000 hours annually across the analyst teams that were previously supporting manual test case preparation, script refresh, and test execution
- Incorporating a significant number of third-party application workflow automation
- Driving significant satisfaction among their team who no longer have to handle manual testing minutia
- Benefiting from the continual development and maintenance embedded in the SureManage solution, which keeps UNC automation fresh and ready with each new upgrade and system update
- Improving formal testing of 2-week intervals from 8 to 12 cycles yearly
- Significantly increasing test coverage, quality, frequency and accuracy
CONCLUSION
There is no doubt that heavy EHR, third-party, and enterprise application testing demands will not only continue but will exponentially increase, placing hospitals and health system IT staff on a slippery slope just trying to keep up. What is also clear is that the stakes are incredibly high across critically important fronts, from patient safety and care quality to operational efficiencies and financial performance.
The solution is for health systems to adopt a five-part playbook for intelligent application test automation that includes: (1) a strong and flexible modular framework; (2) a test script library; (3) a customized engine specific for the health systems workflows; (4) a tech-stack that integrates with the enterprise; and (5) highly experienced script testing engineers to keep it all running smoothly.
The experience of health system leader UNC Health provides a helpful roadmap for other health systems to consider and possibly use as a similar playbook to guide their own script testing journey.
“With our partnership with SureTest and their full-service solution and our commitment to shift to leverage automation for essential technology testing, our healthcare IT organization checks off another box toward UNC Health’s unparalleled dedication to innovation.”
– Bonita Mittman, Executive Director of Information Technology, UNC Health
ABOUT UNC HEALTH
UNC Health is an integrated healthcare system owned by the state of North Carolina and based in Chapel Hill. Known as “North Carolina’s Health Care System,” UNC Health provides care to patients in the state’s 100 counties through 14 hospitals, 20 hospital locations, and hundreds of clinical practices. One of the nation’s leading academic healthcare systems, the $5.4 billion enterprise employs over 33,000 employees from Hendersonville to Jacksonville. Recently, US News named five adult and seven children’s specialties at UNC Medical Center in its “Best Hospitals” and “Best Children’s Hospitals” reports.
ABOUT SURETEST
Founded in 2020, SureTest’s intelligent test automation solution empowers health systems to transform their entire EHR, third-party, and enterprise application testing processes to repurpose or reduce thousands of staff hours annually. By leveraging the power of our solution, our clients can optimize their staff, realize game-changing efficiency, and improve patient care. Our solution precisely emulates the end-user and patient experiences and validates workflow integrity, resulting in a revolutionary approach to enterprise system application upgrades, optimizations, and new implementations.
CONTACT
615.721.3233 • connect@suretest.health • www.suretest.health
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