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Personnel Updates

Staff turnover is a common problem we all share in the dialysis world. Effective communication will help increase the results of our various shared quality improvement initiatives. As you know, maintaining patient data in the ESRD system (currently EQRS) is mandated in the Dialysis Conditions for Coverage that your organization agreed to when you were first certified by Medicare. That responsibility also extends to maintaining an accurate list of key personnel in EQRS, formerly CROWNWeb. All of the Network’s contact data is derived from the names and email addresses you maintain in EQRS.

These instructions show you how to update your key staff in EQRS (see page 8 “Edit Facility Personnel Information).

Caution – Do Not Delete former personnel.

There are two reasons to NOT ever delete a personnel record in EQRS:

  1. That person may now be working at another clinic that is also a part of your organization. You can see that by looking at the bottom of the Personnel screen in EQRS. Simply edit and remove that position record and not the personnel record. OR…
  2. That person is gone from your organization and doesn’t currently show that he/she is listed anywhere else. In that case mark the Personnel record as “Inactive”.

Key Personnel who must be listed with a valid email address

The following are key named positions in a clinic who we need to communicate with. The same person can be listed under multiple roles/positions. The terminology may vary between organizations:

  • Medical Director (physicians must list their UPIN or NPI number)
  • Nephrologist(s) (we recognize that some are reluctant to gives their email address out, but we must have it)
  • Administrator or Clinic Manager or Nurse Manager. Each of these describes the person who runs the clinic day to day.
  • Facility Representative (to the ESRD Network)
  • Social Worker(s)
  • Nurse(s)
  • Facility Disaster Contact (requires the listing of a cell phone number for emergency purposes. We do not share that with anyone)
  • Facility Disaster Contact Back-up (if you have one)

Tips and Tricks

Always search for the person before creating them. People move around a lot so they may already have a personnel record, in which case all you need to do is update their position information for the new clinic CCN. You may find they already have several versions, so just pick the one that seems most recent, but always be sure to edit the email address so that it is for the latest dialysis organization.

The position record is a combination of two key things:

  • What clinic CCN they are in, and
  • What their position is there. They can and often do have multiple positions, for example Sally Smith can be, and often is, the Facility Administrator and the Facility Representative. She might also be the Facility Disaster Contact too.

Remember – don’t ever delete a personnel record, just delete the obsolete position record.