Created by OTBNZ News on 07/12/2010

Introduction
The Occupational Therapy Board of New Zealand (OTBNZ) plans to introduce a new computer system (SysRAy) in mid-December.  This will replace the existing system (known as Firefly).  This note:

1. provides some details about the new system and the impact on practitioners
2. discusses the steps which will be taken during the introduction

SysRAy provides:

• an improved website for practitioners (concentrating on extra CCFR functionality)
• improved facilities for other users (OTBNZ staff, external CCFR supervisors, and CCFR auditors)
• the ability (from 2011 onwards) for students at the New Zealand Occupational Therapy schools to log on and practise using the CCFR.

Details about the regulations governing occupational therapy in New Zealand and the work of OTBNZ can be found elsewhere on this website.  As we get closer to launch, this website will also include details about SysRAy and its introduction, which will be updated as things change.

What isn’t changing

1. The CCFR and personal data that has been entered over the five years that Firefly has been operating will be moved into SysRAy.  Practitioners will not have to re-input any existing data.  Practitioners are encouraged to continue to nominate third parties, update their CCFR, etc in Firefly for the moment, as such changes will be migrated for you into SysRAy.
2. In SysRAy practitioners will still maintain their own contact details, apply online for practising certificates, make online credit card payments, nominate supervisors and third parties, and record CCFR details.
3. An online Register of occupational therapists who hold a current practising certificate will be available to the public.
4. External CCFR supervisors (people who aren’t occupational therapists) will be able to log on, view the CCFR details of the practitioners who nominate them as their supervisors, and record comments.
5. CCFR audits will continue to be carried out online.
6. OTBNZ will use the database to extract anonymous statistics (eg workforce statistics) and pass data to and from the MoH’s Health Practitioner Index.

What is changing for practitioners

1. The “look and feel” of the system will be more modern, and a series of “tabs” will allow users to quickly and easily navigate through the new system.
2. Navigation around the CCFR will be much easier, and new facilities have been added:

• practitioners name their CCFR elements (self assessments, objectives and activities), and these names are used consistently in all views
• practitioners have the ability to see (and print off, if required) a structured view of all the CCFR elements in a competency
• a pop up panel will allow practitioners to view / edit large blocks of text
• formatting of text (bold, italic, underline, etc) will be available
• practitioners will explicitly decide what is to be archived and what is not.

3. Staff will use a workflow system when processing applications from practitioners, and practitioners will be able to see what stage their application has reached.
4. The process for practitioners applying to have new qualifications added to the Register, or to have name changes recorded, will be simplified.
5. The system will validate New Zealand addresses against the official New Zealand Post address list, and add post codes.
6. Changes to the data collected about jobs will improve our workforce statistics.
7. A SysRAy user manual will be available online.

What happens next and what will practitioners have to do?

1. OTBNZ is finishing testing the system and the data conversion process.
2. A considerable amount of effort needs to go into “setting up” the new system – entering the descriptions of conditions on practice, the lists of countries and ethnicities, email templates, types of person, etc.
3. When everything is ready, OTBNZ will contact users (practitioners and external CCFR supervisors) and then stop access to the existing Firefly system.  The public website will still be available, and will provide information about progress.
4. OTBNZ staff will convert the existing Firefly data and upload it into SysRAy, a process that will take several days.  They will then test to ensure everything looks fine.  If it does, they will open up access to SysRAy and advise users.  If there are problems, these will either be fixed, or we will revert back to Firefly whilst planning fixes and another data conversion.
5. The “outage” (period without a system) will be about three days.  During that time nobody will be able to log on, and the public register will not be available online.  However, the public section of the OTBNZ website will still be available, and will provide information about the progress of the conversion.
6. Practitioners will then be asked to log on and look at a number of things which may not have come across completely accurately:

• postal and residential addresses
• any existing formatting in the CCFR (eg bullet points)
• names of CCFR elements (data conversion will give them a fairly meaningless temporary name).

7. Practitioners will be able to use SysRAy to fix any problems which they find.
8. OTBNZ will provide help by phone as required, and update the website with answers to any problems which are being found by more than one person.
9. Practitioners will then use SysRAy for their online dealings with OTBNZ (CCFR, recertification applications, personal details, payments, etc), and external CCFR supervisors will use SysRAy to view practitioners’ CCFRs and make comments.

What should practitioners do now?
Please plan around the period when the system won’t be available because of the data conversion.  If you are going to need a new practising certificate about then, or will want to have conditions on scope of practise lifted about then, please don’t leave your application until the last moment.  If you are a third party for someone whose APC runs out about then, please make your attestation in good time.

If you have recently nominated a new external CCFR supervisor (ie a CCFR supervisor who isn’t an occupational therapist), and they haven’t yet accepted, please contact them and ask them to do so.  This is because nominations for external CCFR supervisors made in Firefly won’t be able to be accepted in SysRAy.  (Nominations of practitioners to be supervisors can be made in Firefly and subsequently accepted in SysRAy if necessary.)

Kind regards

Bill
Bill Robinson
Project Manager
Occupational Therapy Board of New Zealand