Downtime and support model plans announced for eStar Upgrade on April 7

eStar will receive a substantial upgrade in the early morning hours of April 7. As part of this effort, a 3.5-hour downtime for the system will be necessary beginning at 1 a.m. Downtime procedures will be in effect, and all users must log out of the system. A read-only version of eStar will be available to review patient information.

The team performed extensive testing to guarantee the various changes are all working as designed. Three practice events are being conducted this week to also prepare for rolling out the new changes.

Command centers will be operational during and after the transition to track and address any issues related to the upgrade. Additionally, several mechanisms are in place to help support Vanderbilt colleagues during the process:

• The Help Desk (343-HELP) will be augmented with additional eStar experts
• Support teams will be dispersed throughout the Medical Center (located on the main campus, One Hundred Oaks and many other “remote” sites) for on-call support
• Local, embedded support will be available through Clinician Champions and eStar Representatives who received additional training on the new features and functionality

Since the initial launch of eStar in 2017, this network of Clinician Champions and eStar Representatives has been created and nurtured. These individuals are Vanderbilt employees—mainly providers and nurses—who receive ongoing training and communication so they can help their peers and improve the use of eStar at Vanderbilt. Their involvement in the April upgrade should prove to be invaluable in terms of peer support.