I am here today to talk to you about the new Health Information
Exchange plan and how we as a community should move forward.
Achieving a new EHR and implementing a new model of care will
change how people work, and as a result, it changes the
organizational culture. EHR itself cannot fail the facility goals, but
failure to deal with the staff model can lead to uncertainty and can
have a bad impact on the implementation project's goals and success.
Change can upset the scale and equilibrium of both the facility and
the personnel. People may become afraid of their social position and
about their self- esteem not being able to learn a new technology or
to perform it appropriately for their patients. A project manager or a
leader needs to work on both encouragement and/or
interdisciplinary approaches to manage a change to be accepted and
learned.
Communication is key in any process change there are guaranteed to
be speed bumps. These speed bumps whether they be personnel
training issues, connectivity issues, system error issues etc. are
bound to happen. However, to make it so that these issues do not
become major problems the implementation team needs to know
about them as soon as they appear. This will allow them to see what
the surrounding scenario that could have triggered the issue to
happen are. To help alleviate these issues at the lowest level possible
we will have staff members in every department on every shift that
are the designated process improvement champions and
stakeholders should be involved. These members must be individuals
that the rest of their co-worker’s trust to help them fix their work
issues. They also must be trained to be able to know what they can
fix with minimal delays and what needs to be well documented so
that it can be elevated to the next level. Another benefit of
communication is explained very well in the article by Mary Butler,
“As leaders, it is often uncomfortable to know some of the things we
know due to the privilege of information provided from key decision
makers. One key element is to be open to answering all questions,
even the really difficult ones,” Swafford advises. “Another is being
aware that change is scarier for some than for others and all they
want is to understand—so tell them. And, if you don’t know, tell them
you don’t know. Be honest and be kind!”. If a patient is getting
frustrated because of a process change then explain the process to
them there will be more sympathy for all involved when there is
more understanding. Another key to success is a positive attitude.
Since we know that there will be issue if we as a community can
gather round and convince ourselves and those around us that the
end will justify the means then we can face the hardest issue that will
arise. Also, with this positive attitude the patient will be less abrasive
about the process changes.
