Change Management and EHR Implementations
The value of Electronic Health Records (EHR) seems obvious to most of us. With our vast progress in technology, it seems strange that manual health care records are not a thing of the very distant past. However, to implement Electronic Health Records, an organization must apply a change management strategy. That is the issue! Change is not easy. And our natural reaction to change is resistance.
Because of the nature of the business, most hospital cultures do not support organizational change. Hospital employees tend towards being reactive to constant change. Hospitals typically have two leaders; an administrative leader to run the operation and a medical doctor in charge of the physicians and clinicians. With the two leaders having very different concerns, there may not be a shared vision for the organization. This lack of shared vision would inhibit change.
The most common barriers to change in the healthcare industry:
- Cultural complacency – we have always done it this way.
- Resistance – we have to learn a new technology. As we may be techno phobic, this is outside our comfort zone. Some people do prefer manual systems to computer systems.
- Lack of communication – we aren’t able to keep up with all the change as we are always understaffed.
- Lack of alignment and accountability
- Passive and absent leadership – they figure they can delegate their role as sponsor
- Overloaded workforce – we don’t have time for one more thing to learn
- Lack of control plans to measure and sustain results – it is easy enough to use the old process even after implementing the new process and tool
Specific barriers to Electronic Health Records:
- Cost – adoption and implementation costs, ongoing maintenance costs, loss of revenue associated with temporary loss of productivity.
- Participation of all physicians – some support the idea, some have gotten quite used to the paper system.
- Interoperability between other systems and the EHR system. There are no standards so many of the systems are not easily integrated with other systems.
- Some people are concerned that healthcare professionals will over rely on EHR data, spending less time with patients and spending less time listening to their concerns.
- Information systems increase the ability for executives to know more about what is going on and to exert more direct control. This takes power away from the middle manager.
So how do we compel the people in the Healthcare organizations to change to Electronic Healthcare Record systems? To create a change campaign around implementing an EHR, we need to answer a few key questions for the people who have to change:
Why are we doing this? What is the business benefit? This will allow clinicians to access the right patient information in a timely manner, wherever the patient is. This will reduce medical errors through better access to patient data and error prevention alerts.
Why do we need to do this now? What are the consequences of not doing this? Paper systems are causing wrongful diagnosis and can even lead to deaths. These systems are prone to error and delay the healing process. Paper records have been destroyed in floods, fires and other natural disasters. Electronic systems can build in backup and disaster recovery.
What is in it for me? As change leaders, we must discuss the positive impact on hospital employees by showing how it will improve their job. This will allow individuals to spend more time on valuable tasks (such as decision making) versus tedious, labor intensive tasks required of paper systems.
The executives of the organization need to understand the return on investment from the costly purchase, implementation and maintenance of an EHR system. The system improves practice efficiency and streamlines processes. These systems can result in cost avoidance through alerts needed to ensure compliance with regulations and can reduce duplication of testing.
The goal of change management is to help individuals transition through change so that the organization can bring about impactful business benefit. If change leaders convey these messages frequently to the employees, allow two way conversations to gauge and resolve individual concerns and ensure people are well trained on the new system, an EHR initiative is much more likely to succeed.
About the Author: Carolyn Reid joined MSS in 2012, a recent addition to the MSS family Carolyn’s adept problem solving skills and project management experience made her a natural fit. Carolyn brings over 15 years of consulting experience and a true passion for bringing significant improvement to a client’s business. Carolyn has successfully helped organizations to improve their strategic planning, change management initiatives, portfolio management processes and business process re-engineering across various industries including: healthcare, manufacturing, banking, insurance, public sector aerospace and defense.