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. a Also, with this positive attitude
the patient will be less abrasive about the process changes.
