What Have You Done For Your Clinicians Lately?

  - Enabling Clinicians to Transform Healthcare -

Recently I heard the statement “We have a dedicated team of full-time HIT consultants with special expertise in process redesign, change management and technology adoption, and years of complex implementation experience with all major EHR vendors”.

Once again it darned on me - clinicians are yet to be fully integrated and involved in EHR/HIT adoptions and the implementation of healthcare information technology in their very own organizations!

According to Gartner’s “Gartner Agenda for Healthcare, 2012” (Published: 29 February 2012)…….“all stakeholders will need new applications and processes to be betterable to participate in healthcare decisions and understand the potential opportunities, as well asconsequences, of their choices. Moreover, as risk is increasingly shared by providers, consumersand payers, traditional roles will converge, broadening the scope of IT services to closercollaboration within and between provider and payer organizations…..”

In my opinion this statement says a lot. I believe to be successful IT initiative leaders must recognize the impact of clinicians and their workflows on all other disciplines within the organization, because every supporting clinician will have an enormous positive impact on influencing the adoption initiatives. On the other hands, it is without a doubt that clinicians (like any other stakeholders), that do not have a clear understanding of their roles and responsibilities can have an adverse effect on the progress of adoption on healthcare information technology initiatives. Let me put is this way, only clinician involvement can orchestrates the process by which clinicians are “integrated” in the process of delivery of quality-centered care. So have you talked to you clinicians lately?

An obstructionist clinician team can derail an otherwise successful HIT adoption project and/or your EHR application implementation. So keep in mind that clinician teams (in my opinion) are more inclined to adopt “useful” technology which support or enhance their existing workflow.

The Healthcare sector is still facing profound challenges, with stakeholders taking on more risk and, increased emphasis on reducing options in patient-care administration, so if personalized care is to become the norm, both healthcare payers, providers and vendors will need to substantially increase the collaborative adoption effort to effective gain wins from HIT/EHR adoption projects.

So how can organizations best procure, implement, manage and measure/optimize the benefits from electronic health record (EHR) systems?

• Try to understand the organizational culture and the way clinician’s team thinks and work within that organization (the methodology use in hospital A will not be the same in hospital Y).
• Engage your clinician’s team early to optimize the use of technology in support of quality and process improvement initiatives (do FOR your clinicians, no TO your clinicians).
• Leverage the clinician knowledge to achieve successful implementation through
• Positive “cost-shifting” and cultural sensitivity
• Anticipate clinician’s team readiness and willingness to integrate technology in clinical practice

With the profound changes taking place due stimulus incentives and meaningful use requirements, the potential impact of information technology for payers and providers has never been greater. The clear distinction between adoption success and failure will be blurring, but by enabling and integrating clinicians to contribute and take on their own care and wellness adoption process with clear transparency and accountability - is a sure requirement for project success. So what have you done for you clinicians lately? Or are you not experiencing any physician-related challenges or barriers to your clinical information technology implementation?