A Crucial Component to A Successful EHR Implementation: Getting People On Board With Change

There’s no question that electronic health record systems (EHRs) can improve your practice’s efficiency and productivity. However, without full buy-in from everyone on your staff, you’ll never achieve the performance results you anticipate.

It’s one thing to know that you need staff buy-in, it’s another thing entirely to know how to get it.

When it comes to failed EHR implementations, more often than not, the missing link is getting people on-board with the change.

Here are some steps you need to take to get participation, cooperation and collaboration from staff members at all levels, and increase your chances for a more rapidly successful EHR implementation.

1. Convey The Urgent Need For Change

   Making a major change in your practice is hard enough. Trying to make that change when people don’t recognize the need for it is a recipe for failure.

   Everyone in your practice needs to understand the factors that make the new EHR desirable or even essential – for example: the ability to streamline work and enhance patient care, the opportunity to reduce costs and increase productivity, and the ability to adapt to changes in patient needs, 3rd party demands and new government decisions.

   However, while you may make a great logical case for change, people don’t make decisions based on logic alone. Emotions are a powerful factor. You need to make sure that your staff not only understands the logical reasons for change, but also understands what the consequences will be to them personally if the change isn’t successful.

   When you present the new system as a way for the practice to continue to operate profitably – despite challenges, to continue to provide quality care to your patients, and to continue to provide your valued staff with employment, you’re likely to capture their attention.

2. Keep People Informed

   People don’t really fear change. What triggers fear is uncertainty.

   The worst thing you can do is to keep people in the dark about your plans. This encourages rumors and leads people to start grumbling about their jobs and worrying about their futures.

   When it comes to implementing an EHR in the practice, one of the biggest concerns people have is whether the new technology will take away their jobs.

   In light of today’s economic realities, no one really expects guarantees of job security. However, what they can and should expect are honest answers to tough questions.

   People will want to know:

   • How the change will impact their work and their futures
   • What will be expected of them
   • What new skills they will need to meet these expectations
   • How they will be trained and supported for these new challenges
   • How their performance will be assessed

   The fact is, new technology will make some tasks unnecessary, and some skills irrelevant.

   However it’s important for you to recognize, and to communicate to everyone, that when work gets reorganized, and when certain tasks are no longer necessary, people can be moved to more profitable activities.

   For example, if implementing the new system will allow you to increase your patient load, you may need staff to shift to more patient-centered activities in order to take advantage of these new opportunities.

3. Harness the Power of Collaboration

   Regardless how large your practice is, a new IT system will impact the work of staff members at all levels. To get the maximum value from that system, and to increase the speed of getting to that value, you need discretionary effort and enthusiastic collaboration from everyone in your practice

   First, when it comes to design of the system and the reengineering of the workflow, you must get your staff’s perspective. They are closest to much of the work of the practice and can offer suggestions and ideas that can facilitate implementation and reduce the expenses and the temporary productivity slow-downs that inevitably accompany any new EHR implementation.

   Second, if you want to mobilize people to not only cooperate, but to give their best effort, you need to allow them to participate in developing plans. You may have heard the expression,
   “People who plan the battle, rarely battle the plan.”
   If staff members at all levels are involved with the development of the implementation strategy, they will have a vested interest in its success.

   The way to do that is through a series of interactive workshop-style staff meetings that elicit staff ideas and engage staff members in creating their own future.

4. Show People What’s In It For Them

   The real secret of successful change management is to show people what’s in it for them. You can accomplish this in two ways.

   First, by showing how the change will positively impact people’s work and enhance their job satisfaction.

   Today many practice staffs are exhausted by the ever-increasing workload. Senior staff members often have to put in additional hours to get all of the paperwork done. When patient charts are lost, delayed or incomplete, physicians are frustrated and staff members often bear the brunt of that annoyance. And when patients are kept waiting due to inefficient workflow, poor communication, or missing information, who frequently has to listen to the complaints? The nearest staff-member.

   Different practices, and different departments within a practice, will have different issues that frustrate and annoy people. The point is to identify the specific issues that get in the way of optimum performance and to show how the change will help to alleviate these.

   The second way to show people what’s in it for them is to attach rewards and recognition to specific goals and milestones.

   Offering staff bonuses for increased practice productivity, increased referrals and increased patient satisfaction can be very effective in showing people what’s in it for them and building a real team effort in the process.

   However, it can take a while to get to significant performance increases. Establishing intermediate milestones, “small wins” – like getting a specific system module successfully up and running, or achieving a certain reduction in transcription usage – can go a long way to building momentum and can help to convert any lingering skeptics.

   These kind of rewards and recognition are tangible pay-offs that fuel the fire of motivation.