AIMS is a provincial health system initiative seeking to integrate more than 80 individual, outdated systems that support finance, human resources, and supply chain management data. The move to AIMS will centralize information and shift many processes online—eventually resulting in a paperless system. This is a health-care system-wide improvement involving the Saskatchewan Health Authority, 3sHealth, eHealth, the Saskatchewan Cancer Agency, SAHO, and affiliated employers.

Denise Shillingford, a human resources director at Eden Care Communities in Regina, is part of a highly impacted group (HIG) of employees in human resources, finance, and supply chain management that will see changes to its daily work as part of AIMS’ first “wave.” For over one month, she and other human resource HIG employees participated in User Acceptance Testing (UAT), a process in which software is tested in a simulated “real world” environment by the people who will eventually use that program. Shillingford and her team viewed demos and completed test scripts related to job postings and recruitment, records of employment, calendar month-end accruals, and other reporting features. They also viewed work standards that were developed by the Saskatchewan Health Authority as a baseline to help them create their own. 

“I am thankful to have a fair number of our own work standards created,” said Shillingford. “UAT will serve me well going into training, and to support my staff through this transition in the first few weeks and months after launch.” 

Approximately 4,000 human resources, finance, and supply chain management HIG employees participated in UAT in April and May to prepare for the launch. UAT test readiness scores were high, averaging an overall pass rate of 96.5 per cent. Following final testing and participant feedback, the human resources functions of AIMS wave 1 launched on June 24; it will be followed by the finance and supply chain systems on July 1. Time entry and scheduling will gradually begin rolling out in waves 2, 3, and 4, which will begin this winter.