New technology will always be a disruption, but personalization can minimize a new EHR's negative impact on patient care by matching new tech to existing clinical workflow, not vice-versa. While it's important to focus on "speed to value" with a new EHR, health systems that take the time to personalize workflows for specialties and individual providers typically see a much higher rate of adoption and a quicker return to pre-go-live productivity.

The 10 Commandments of an EHR go-live

Health systems should consider a multi-layered approach to personalization. At the very least, health systems should design technology that aligns the EHR to serve high-level strategic goals, such as quality reporting and provider productivity expectations.

When it comes to the individual user level, almost every health system starts with didactic classroom trainings that may combine users from a variety of different clinical and administrative areas. While this is a good baseline, it's challenging to teach a course that applies to doctors and nurses, front office staff, and revenue cycle alike. Physicians, specifically, report that these sessions take time away from their patients and don't always provide the value they are hoping they will.

Because of this, one-on-one opportunities for personalization are most efficient and have the biggest impact. I typically see health systems tackle one-on-one personalization support in a couple of ways. The first is setting up a personalization lab. Prior to go-live, we set up a 24/7 personalization lab right in the physician's office or hospital. This gives clinicians the opportunity to stop in with ad hoc questions, or better yet, make a formal appointment with a clinical EHR expert. These sessions are guided by an extensive checklist of EHR personalization options, fine-tuning everything to the clinician's preference and specialty.

One orthopedic surgeon came back to the personalization lab four times, and that was after she had already completed the classroom training. We worked with her to personalize specific workflows, order sets, and even simple things like page setup in the EHR.

Why the EHR life cycle is just like raising a child

Personalization serves as just-in-time training and is usually well received by the clinicians. Sometimes this training takes the form of a mobile workstation in the hallways that caters to clinicians' in-the-moment questions during their breaks and doesn't pull them away from patients. This kind of assistance is also usually well received by clinicians since it gives them a chance to ask a question about a real patient scenario.

The trick to getting EHR and go-live training right, in any scenario, is to provide the right support—other clinicians who will stand at the elbow with the providers as they navigate real scenarios and issues. And staffing your personalization lab with clinicians will give you the best bang for your buck, providing your staff with clinical and technical expertise. Trainers that combine EHR acumen with clinical expertise and knowledge of appropriate workflows can help clinicians hard code best practices into the technology in a way a technical expert may not.

EHR go-live is an anxiety-ridden time for all health system staff, clinicians and non-clinicians alike. It's important that all staff feel they have the support, training, and preparation to use the EHR to its fullest potential to impact patient care.

This article first appeared on HIStalk.

The 10 Commandments of an EHR go-live

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