CPHIMS CPHIMS System Implementation and Support 4 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which document captures the agreed-upon service expectations between the IT department and clinical end users following system implementation, including uptime and response time guarantees?
- Memorandum of understanding (MOU)
- Service level agreement (SLA) (Correct answer)
- Business associate agreement (BAA)
- Operational level agreement (OLA)
Correct answer: Service level agreement (SLA)
An SLA formally defines the measurable service standards, such as uptime percentages and support response times, between IT and end users.
Question 2: A healthcare organization plans to decommission a legacy system six months after go-live of the new EHR. What is the MOST important consideration for the decommission plan?
- Ensuring legacy system licenses are renewed during the overlap period
- Defining a data archival and retrieval strategy for historical patient records (Correct answer)
- Training IT staff on the legacy system for ongoing support
- Migrating all legacy system code into the new EHR
Correct answer: Defining a data archival and retrieval strategy for historical patient records
Decommissioning a legacy system requires a clear plan for archiving and retrieving historical data to meet regulatory retention requirements.
Question 3: Which type of system testing verifies that a new software patch applied to the EHR has not broken existing functionality?
- Stress testing
- Regression testing (Correct answer)
- Parallel testing
- Smoke testing
Correct answer: Regression testing
Regression testing re-executes existing test cases after a change to confirm that previously working functionality has not been broken.
Question 4: An implementation team is conducting parallel testing by running legacy and new systems simultaneously. What is the PRIMARY goal of this approach?
- To reduce the cost of the new system implementation
- To compare outputs of both systems and confirm the new system produces accurate results before cutover (Correct answer)
- To allow users to choose which system to use during the transition
- To demonstrate vendor contract compliance
Correct answer: To compare outputs of both systems and confirm the new system produces accurate results before cutover
Parallel testing compares real-world outputs from both systems to validate accuracy and build confidence before decommissioning the legacy system.
Question 5: During post-go-live support, a hospital notices that system response times have degraded significantly at shift change. Which action BEST addresses this performance issue?
- Roll back the system to the previous version
- Conduct a performance analysis and optimize database queries or server resources based on findings (Correct answer)
- Issue a downtime notification to all users at shift change
- Request the vendor replace all workstations
Correct answer: Conduct a performance analysis and optimize database queries or server resources based on findings
A targeted performance analysis identifies the root cause—such as inefficient queries or insufficient resources—enabling a corrective optimization.
Question 6: Which activity is MOST critical during the cutover planning phase to ensure business continuity if the new system fails immediately after go-live?
- Vendor contract renegotiation
- Downtime and rollback procedure documentation and testing (Correct answer)
- Final user training completion
- Post-implementation benefit realization analysis
Correct answer: Downtime and rollback procedure documentation and testing
Documented and tested downtime and rollback procedures ensure the organization can revert safely if critical failures occur at go-live.
Question 7: A project manager is tracking implementation tasks using a Gantt chart and discovers that a delay in interface build will push the go-live date back by two weeks. The interface task is on the critical path. What should the PM do FIRST?
- Immediately reschedule the go-live date
- Analyze options to crash or fast-track the interface build to recover the schedule (Correct answer)
- Remove the interface from scope to protect the go-live date
- Notify the vendor that the contract SLA has been breached
Correct answer: Analyze options to crash or fast-track the interface build to recover the schedule
When a critical path task is delayed, the PM should first explore crashing (adding resources) or fast-tracking (overlapping tasks) before rescheduling go-live.
CPHIMS CPHIMS System Implementation and Support 4
Which document captures the agreed-upon service expectations between the IT department and clinical end users following system implementation, including uptime and response time guarantees?