Practice Management Alert

Educate your employees on new electronic systems to reduce stress and boost productivity

EHR adoption is critical for your practice, but training staff to use that EHR properly can be a real challenge.

Eye Care Leaders EHR education expert Tammie Sloan and Lead Technician at Washington’s Northwest Eye Clinic Anndrea Grant offer some helpful guidance on the best ways to use your EHR, get resistant staff on board with using it, and maintain consistent education without disrupting the workflow of your office.

Beware Barriers to Adoption

“In the past, new employees only needed to become knowledgeable in the medical field in which they worked and learn the clinical skills necessary for their specific position,” Grant says, of training staff on EHR. “Today, new employees must not only tackle the learning curve of a new area of medicine, but they must also face the looming EHR giant of new computer systems, software, online portals, and workflow processes. Simply hiring those already established within your specific medical field has not been the answer to the EHR training dilemma. Instead, established technicians hired by a new practice must still go through an extensive training period to become proficient in the new EHR they will be using.”

Sloan warns that staff may feel intimidated by new technology. “Before participating in a learning event, provide new staffers with a thorough understanding of what they are expected to learn, how their behavior is expected to change, the results they are expected to achieve, and how these results contribute to the overall goals of the organization,” she advises.

Finding the time for EHR education sessions while managing the demands of a busy practice schedule is also a challenge. Sloan recommends that practice managers create an incentive system for employees who participate in learning events. She says, “Have a specific way to call attention to and reward training efforts of your team.”

Start with Basic Training

Grant advises that practices train staff on simple data entry first, like entering “pre-visit” history. “This helps the employee become familiar with the EHR system and build their medical knowledge at the same time,” she says.

She recommends having new hires act as scribes for a designated trainer when they begin. Usually, new hires in training only get a “watch and learn” experience, as they are still limited in what they can do on their own on the EHR. But Grant encourages practices to take advantage of that time by putting new hires to work as “scribes for the trainer, entering all the patient information into the EHR as the trainer performs the patient workup,” she says.

Engage Super Users to Overcome Reluctance to Learn

Employees who have worked in your practice for years may prefer their own way of doing things because “that’s how it’s always been done.” But allowing that kind of thinking in your practice can only lead to stagnant revenues and weak compliance. To handle those resistant employees, Sloan recommends assigning Super Users, current staff members who are well-versed in EHR, to “drive the learning process for the whole practice. Super Users will make the team feel more confident and less stressed.” One way to identify potential Super Users is by asking your EHR vendor to watch for staff members who are skilled at absorbing information quickly and explaining it to others during on-site training sessions.

Use These 7 Tools to Train Continuously

Training should be an ongoing process, not a one-time occurrence you never follow up on. “Training is not an event, where we attend a workshop one day and expect the desired behavior to take place the next day,” Sloan says. She recommends the following ways to keep practice staff engaged in EHR education:

• Lunch and Learn: Set up training workstations in an area away from patients and have lunch delivered.  
• Role Playing: Hold a “Friends and Family EHR Exam Day” before you’re scheduled to go live. Invite friends and family of staff to come in and play patients. This allows you to work through your first data entry with real people but without real pressure.
• Train by Department: Since not everyone needs to know every single component of the system for their role, schedule role-specifc training to keep staff engaged. For example, give front desk staff a day to learn together, followed by technicians, and then doctors.
• Saturday Boot Camp: Physicians can be incredibly busy during the week. Hold a boot camp on a Saturday to get their undivided attention.
• Question of the Day: Once training begins on the eLearning Center, send an electronic “Question of the Day” out to your staff. Award a gift card to the person who gives the correct answer first.
• High Scores: Award a prize to staff members who have the highest overall test scores on the eLearning Center.
• Backfilling Charts: The best way to learn is by repetition, so make sure that all employees are involved in backfilling charts before the day you go live. This will also decrease the amount of time involved in recording patient histories on the day of the visit.

Communicate to Ease Update Stress

You should also train your staff to be prepared for the EHR updates that will inevitably come your way. Grant notes that “communication is key” in order to implement the update smoothly and not disrupt your office workflow. She recommends that physicians and » practice administrators alert the staff to EHR updates during regular staff meetings. “If notification about an update or change is necessary before the scheduled meeting, emailing the information to all the staff and then following up with each department to make sure they understand the concept can be an effective way to communicate and implement new changes quickly,” sheadds.

Above all, Grant and Sloan advise, don’t let yourself become overwhelmed while training your employees in EHR. Break down the training and education process into consistent, bite-size steps like the ones above, and your practice staff will get up to speed in no time.