Question: A Connect Care FAQ document says that eCLINICIAN is being replaced by Connect Care. How does this work, logistically, for the community physicians, academic physicians at other sites, and researchers with studies that use eCLINICIAN? Once a transition occurs, will eCLINICIAN still be accessible for those who have relied upon it?
Answer: It is true that the eCLINICIAN clinical information system (CIS) is being replaced by the Connect Care CIS. But it is not true that there will be discontinuity, loss of data or lack of ongoing support for those who have relied upon eCLINICIAN.
Connect Care replaces eCLINICIAN, like-for-like. Everyone who uses eCLINICIAN as the record of care (or the scheduling facilitator of care) is aware of the change and supported in the move to Connect Care. This includes all outpatient areas where eCLINICIAN has been used, many outside the University Health Sciences campus. Research protocols are moved to Connect Care, where there are superior research information management tools.
Most of the clinical content of eCLINICIAN is automatically moved (data converted) to Connect Care. There are some things that cannot be safely moved. Personalizations, for example, have to be manually copied by physicians from one Epic platform to the next. And some scanned content will take a while to migrate to the new Connect Care enterprise content management system. All eCLINICIAN stakeholders retain read-only access to eCLINICIAN after Connect Care launches.