Frontline workers say the seven-day delay ‘won’t do much’ for them.
The Single Digital Patient Record Implementation Authority has delayed the go-live for the Epic SDPR rollout in Hunter New England Local Health District by a week, according to sources inside the LHD.
Publicly, the SDPRIA did not put a specific date on the go-live – long touted as the first LHD-wide rollout of the record.
Initially it was due in March, and today the SDPRIA website continued to say simply “May 2026”.
But frontline workers in HNELHD have told HSD that, until very recently, the scheduled go-live was this Wednesday, 20 May.
Today, according to two different sources inside the LHD, it was delayed a week, to Wednesday 27 May.
“I’m not sure it will do much for us,” one worker told HSD.
Also in today’s edition:
HSD understands that a “cutover” weekend involving the fixing of errors in prebooked appointments and theatre lists went well, with 95% of records moving into the Epic environment without issue.
HSD reported last week that frontline workers warned that they were “unprepared and unsupported” for the go-live. Concerns included:
- poor communication from management and SDPRIA trainers;
- poor amount and quality of training;
- training sessions conducted in standard working hours, making it hard for frontline staff to fully engage;
- chat function and mikes turned off, prohibiting questions being asked in real time;
- staff forced to spend their time off reviewing training materials;
- SDPR trainers had no frontline experience, so didn’t understand the needs of the workflow;
- uncertainty around core admission processes – including who was responsible for registering and admitting newborn babies;
- practical concerns about whether the current physical and technical setup of the ED was conducive to effective rollout of SDPR;
- onus placed on staff to “play in the sandpit” and effectively train themselves;
- lack of clear direction regarding workflow processes;
- not showing what patient profiles from the current system would look like.
Related
The SDPRIA has consistently responded in general terms to HSD’s requests for comment but has not addressed the specific concerns of the workers.
HSD today asked for clarification of the dates of the go-live, including a request for confirmation of the delay from 20 May to 27 May. We also asked which parts of the SDPR would be going live and which parts would be rolled out from that date.
We had received no response by our deadline.