It is noon on Friday, 1 March 2024. We are seated in a lecture hall filled up to the brim with enthusiasts, anxiously awaiting the moment. The moment that has been worked on for months, maybe even years. The time has come: UMC Utrecht goes live with HiX 6.3 standard content.

While you would think that an implementation at a hospital that is already familiar with the HiX EPD would be an ‘easy’ transition, practice proves otherwise. Indeed, UMC Utrecht has been working for years with HiX, the EHR system they started using as a customised system in 2016. And therein lies the challenge. The customisation that has been worked on for years is full of technical, polished solutions that perfectly fit the process of the healthcare professionals. Does HiX's standard content meet that? And how does the standard content respond to the multiple hospital locations within UMC Utrecht? All issues that required months of preparation.

Likewise, our consultant Joeri Kerssies has been involved in this. In recent months, he has been busy implementing the care processes within Dialysis and Endoscopy. Challenges such as process harmonisation, links to subsystems and machines, and complex set-up within the EPR come to the surface.

Joeri looks back on the implementation with satisfaction. ‘When you see how hard everyone has worked within the project, it makes you proud. Consequently, you know for sure that it's going to work out and you're ready to go live. This was indeed the case. During the first days of going live, I was able to speak to many happy end-users. Of course, there were some challenges now and then, but thanks to the huge efforts and good cooperation, even those problems were quickly solved", says Joeri.

Now, a few weeks after going live, the pressure is starting to ease and healthcare professionals are becoming increasingly familiar with the new EHR. A good time to evaluate and recharge, so that after the summer the next phase can start in which the processes in and around the EHR will be optimised.