In 2008, Memorial Hospital of Sweetwater County in Rock Springs, Wyo., decided to implement an EMR system. Within 18 months, at a cost of $2 million, MHSC became the first hospital in Wyoming to have a fully implemented, integrated EMR. Here Linda Simmons, chief nursing officer and interim CEO at MHSC, discusses how to motivate your staff and provide adequate training and guidance during implementation.
1. Bring in people who have done it before. When making the transition to a paperless organization, your staff is bound to have questions about how their regular workflows will fit into your new electronic system. Ms. Simmons says that Memorial Hospital of Sweetwater County administrators initially struggled with giving their staff direction on how to build templates for different areas in each department.
"We'd tell them, 'Think outside the box and you'll realize your process are going to change,'" she says. "We didn't realize until a good month or two months in that they couldn’t think outside the box because they had nothing to base it on. They had never worked anywhere else with an EMR." Instead of trusting that your staff will figure out the transition on their own, bring in role models who can give suggestions about how to implement an EMR. Ms. Simmons says that hospital staff should be trying to make their process fit with the computer, not trying to make the computer fit with their process.
2. Provide more training than you think you'll need. According to Ms. Simmons, you won't regret the extra time you spent educating your staff on how to use the system. She says that MHSC underestimated the amount of time and personnel the hospital would require to train its staff and has had to provide more education since go-live. "You can't over-educate them and spend too much time working with them. When you spend time on training, you'll see the importance of educating and playing on the system and getting to know how to use it," she says. If you give your staff members time to experience the system before the trauma of go-live, they'll be more prepared to incorporate the EMR into their day-to-day activities.
3. Stick to your guns. The transition to a paperless hospital won't be easy, Ms. Simmons says. Instead of letting your staff put one toe into the water at a time, she recommends pushing them into the deep end — surrounded by lifeguards, of course. In order to help her nursing staff make the transition to using the EMR, she says, "I confiscated paper orders, and I assured my staff that they had my permission to tell doctors that they had to put their own orders in. I told them to stick up for themselves."
If you let your staff know you're confident about your EMR and their ability to handle the transition, they will feel confident too. She says the hospital had a few problems with physicians who resisted entering their own orders, but after they realized that complaining wouldn't get a response, they stopped asking. "They all do well with it now," she says.
4. Give positive reinforcement. There's a time for tough love, and there's a time for gentle encouragement. Ms. Simmons says that little things — like giving out candy and cookies and allow your staff a few minutes to vent — can go a long way.
Learn more about Memorial Hospital of Sweeetwater County.
1. Bring in people who have done it before. When making the transition to a paperless organization, your staff is bound to have questions about how their regular workflows will fit into your new electronic system. Ms. Simmons says that Memorial Hospital of Sweetwater County administrators initially struggled with giving their staff direction on how to build templates for different areas in each department.
"We'd tell them, 'Think outside the box and you'll realize your process are going to change,'" she says. "We didn't realize until a good month or two months in that they couldn’t think outside the box because they had nothing to base it on. They had never worked anywhere else with an EMR." Instead of trusting that your staff will figure out the transition on their own, bring in role models who can give suggestions about how to implement an EMR. Ms. Simmons says that hospital staff should be trying to make their process fit with the computer, not trying to make the computer fit with their process.
2. Provide more training than you think you'll need. According to Ms. Simmons, you won't regret the extra time you spent educating your staff on how to use the system. She says that MHSC underestimated the amount of time and personnel the hospital would require to train its staff and has had to provide more education since go-live. "You can't over-educate them and spend too much time working with them. When you spend time on training, you'll see the importance of educating and playing on the system and getting to know how to use it," she says. If you give your staff members time to experience the system before the trauma of go-live, they'll be more prepared to incorporate the EMR into their day-to-day activities.
3. Stick to your guns. The transition to a paperless hospital won't be easy, Ms. Simmons says. Instead of letting your staff put one toe into the water at a time, she recommends pushing them into the deep end — surrounded by lifeguards, of course. In order to help her nursing staff make the transition to using the EMR, she says, "I confiscated paper orders, and I assured my staff that they had my permission to tell doctors that they had to put their own orders in. I told them to stick up for themselves."
If you let your staff know you're confident about your EMR and their ability to handle the transition, they will feel confident too. She says the hospital had a few problems with physicians who resisted entering their own orders, but after they realized that complaining wouldn't get a response, they stopped asking. "They all do well with it now," she says.
4. Give positive reinforcement. There's a time for tough love, and there's a time for gentle encouragement. Ms. Simmons says that little things — like giving out candy and cookies and allow your staff a few minutes to vent — can go a long way.
Learn more about Memorial Hospital of Sweeetwater County.