Originally relying on IT staff for most of the testing support, over the years, the process has become increasingly dependent on the time and expertise of people both inside and outside the IT department: superusers and liaisons. The challenge for each person on the testing team is supporting the project work while still managing a full slate of their own daily responsibilities.

Going back to their early MAGIC days, the team used spreadsheets to track progress and issues. As the projects became more complex and LIVE day outcomes became more critical, they moved to a rudimentary tracking system, which improved their reporting capabilities. But when an enthusiastic StreamTask user from another hospital joined their team, they decided to take a serious look at how StreamTask might improve those LIVE Day outcomes. 

Not long after, the IT team requested a StreamTask demonstration. When Laura was asked what her outstanding needs were, she responded: 

• The real challenge was finding an efficient way to organize the overwhelming number of JIRAs that were now associated with an increasing number of modules, particularly as they transitioned to the 6.X platform. Reviewing JIRA documentation one at a time, accounted for an inordinate amount of effort, time that could be better spent on testing, learning, and implementation. 

• She was also looking for real time reporting as opposed to someone collecting progress data and producing reports at certain intervals. With dozens of people involved managing thousands of tasks, communication was important – being able to communicate within the application would be a plus. 

• She was looking for an easy way to account for pre- and go-live issues (training, dictionary work, workflow changes). 

• And lastly, the solution had to be available at a reasonable price with no restrictions on the number of users that can be on the system at the same time. 

After seeing the application in action her team could envision how StreamTask, designed to manage Meditech Upgrades, would be a big step up from what they had been using.

Laura and her team implemented StreamTask in 2017 for their 6.15 Upgrade. 

“Like every new system, you don’t fully understand how it will meet your needs until you start using it. We had a very successful first experience, and through that learning experience we have been able to progress even further. 

IT now begins the process 2-3 weeks before Meditech overlays our TEST system with the new code. After the easy-to-use download of all the JIRA documentation StreamTask converts it into a SQL data base. The conversion also serves to distribute the documentation – at the module level. 

Then those of us on the core team use our favorite feature, Search & Batch to close the many JIRAs that do not apply or do not require testing by searching on key words such as INTERNAL or NO TESTING REQUIRED. We also use Search & Batch to segregate the enhancements so they can be reviewed first. We later turn our attention to corrections, closing the preponderance that do not require testing. 

We then use the same tool (Search & Batch) to parcel out JIRAs by sub-module. Although we do this for nearly every Meditech application, Lab is a good example where we can identify the Blood Bank JIRAs, separating them from the rest of the Lab JIRAs, assigning them to the person(s) responsible for testing them. 

Now that we are on Expanse, we can separate out AMB Front Office JIRAs from Clinical JIRAs so people can be given their applicable AMB JIRAs - all in a matter of seconds using Search & Batch. Having this organizational work done before the Test system is available buys us an additional few week. 

Then IT and the Department liaisons (Owners) proceed through their review and testing process, adjusting Statuses - hopefully arriving at COMPLETE in relatively short order. If a given JIRA requires the attention of someone else, we can either make them the Primary Assignee or add them as an Additional Assignee. 

In certain situations (Statuses, Priorities) e-mails can be triggered automatically.  We rely heavily on a variety of progress reports including our Wall of Shame report which serves to remind certain people (who may have fallen behind on their progress) of the looming LIVE date. 

Problems, whether related to a specific JIRA or not, are captured by a separate Status and/or Priority and can be reviewed (real time) at our weekly interdisciplinary meeting, also attended by our Meditech support team. Automatic emails based on StreamTask rules are sent to IT Management and the Project Manager when a high priority or stopper issue is created in StreamTask, allowing notification prior to the weekly interdisciplinary meeting, and buying us much needed time in getting our issues resolved. 

The weekly interdisciplinary meeting also provides us with an opportunity to learn about and share new hot topics such as gender identification and of course COVID. Another use of Search & Batch where we can search by topic across all modules and get a better understanding of the topic. We can also create a new project and assign special topics to another project to organize for focus testing now or in the future. 

As we move forward, focusing on the most important changes, we use radio buttons to track Go-Live responsibilities such as Training, Dictionary work and Workflow adjustments. Our Integrated testing also identifies changes we did not anticipate. Like everyone in our position, our Live Day goals are: 

• No surprises
• Downtime as predicted
• Successful intermodular data flow
• Successful use of interfaces
• No Clinical, Revenue Cycle or Printing issues 

When we receive word of a Meditech upgrade people are now accustomed to the process and understand the expectation. StreamTask is easy to use. New users can be trained in about an hour or less. We also use single sign-on as our credentials, so no additional passwords are required.”  

If you would like to better understand what’s in your test system, please register for our June 9th Product Showcase on the MUSE website or request your own demonstration by contacting us at Information@arraysoftware.com.