When EHR first appeared 20 years ago, system vendors promoted standardization. Consistency is considered the only pragmatic way to support end-user and enterprise-wide systems. EHR customization and personalization are considered too expensive and difficult to maintain. Twenty years later, this EHR concept has changed.
Today’s healthcare organizations and industry experts agree that EHR personalization can improve the end user experience. Personalization has become the best practice in the industry and is commonly used in all major system implementations and upgrades. In fact, KLAS Research referred to EHR personalization as the “yellow brick road to improve EHR satisfaction” in its 2018 report. Improve the EHR experience through personalization.
In the same 2018 report, KLAS Research pointed out that any personalization will have an immediate impact, but three specific areas are the most valuable: layout, templates, and filters. Personalization is usually the final stage of clinician training and end user activation. But this is the most important step to reduce doctor dissatisfaction and improve the availability of EHR. This article describes four new best practices to be included in the organization’s EHR personalization process.
EHR personalized fulcrum
According to 2021 Physician Mood Index report conducted by athenahealth, In the past 24 months, 23% of doctors have undergone a major technological transformation, including the implementation of EHR. The survey was conducted between October and December 2020, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. The pandemic, industry consolidation and layoffs/leaves have increased the frustration of our country’s doctors against technological change.
For organizations that decide to advance implementation and major upgrades during this period, remote and virtual EHR personalization becomes necessary. Special attention is paid to personalizing document templates, order sets, and preference lists by medical specialty. At the prompt of Covid-19, the following four personalized pivots developed during the pandemic will continue to exist for the foreseeable future and become standard practices in the future.
Shift #1: Virtualization
The virtual one-to-one personalized laboratory is the fulcrum of Covid-19 that the industry will maintain. Due to flexibility, online access, and privacy, the virtual laboratory makes it easier for busy clinicians to learn new EHR systems and modules. The same EHR personalized laboratory kit used in the on-site group training courses can be used for these one-to-one virtual courses.
- Clinicians participate in personalized laboratories according to their own time and schedule, including working from home.
- Providers interact with professional trainers through screen sharing, real-time chat, and online video.
- The laboratory is carried out in private. This encourages clinicians to ask more questions, stay focused and receive highly customized training.
Transformation #2: Personalize by profession
People have long known that EHRs cannot meet the expectations of doctors because they are not tailored to the profession. This extends to EHR training and personalization. By conducting one-to-one virtual personalized laboratories according to majors, courses become more time-saving and more suitable for clinicians. Higher levels of customization make suppliers feel closer to the new system and increase long-term adoption.
For example, you can delete hierarchical condition categories from the EHR template used by pediatricians. Personalized laboratory trainers can be assigned by profession, for example, obstetric nurses are assigned to all members of the OB/GYN department. And you can apply different content, filters, and layouts.
Transition #3: Choosing the best time
The best time for the EHR personalization laboratory is before and during the system launch. Before going live, the personalized laboratory will introduce the new system or module settings to clinicians, and provide the EHR training team with valuable opinions on needs and requirements. Analysis from a personalized laboratory is used to identify end users and professionals who may need help most during the launch period.
Personalization during the actual system launch helps clinicians determine what they really need. What clinicians think they need before going live does not always work in practice because they see how the system handles real-world cases.
Transition #4: Revisit after three months
It is recommended to use three months to evaluate what is effective and fine-tune the layout, templates and filters to improve usability. This time frame also provides enough EHR data to evaluate a specific EHR workflow. For example, the data should show the number of clicks each clinician needs to perform a specific set of tasks within each module of the EHR. With this data, staff can evaluate more effective ways to build document templates, order sets, or preference lists.
The road to excellence
In the long run, the time spent on EHR personalization is worthwhile. Organizations get better returns from their EHR investments, and clinicians report higher satisfaction and availability. The latest best practices described in this article exponentially expand the value of EHR’s personalized work. If your organization has not revisited EHR personalization after the pandemic, now is the time to do so.
