Off the Charts
By Kathy LePar RN, MBA
Senior Consultant
Beacon Partners, Inc.

You made all of the hard decisions, received board approval, and took the plunge. You’ve chosen a vendor that you believe will successfully take you into the world of the Electronic Medical Record (“EMR”)/Electronic Health Record (“EHR”). Your organization is so pleased with these accomplishments and the upcoming venture that it alerts all of the staff to the approaching implementation. However, the news is not received with the anticipated level of delight. The clinical staff wants to know, first of all, what is an EMR/EHR? Does it have anything to do with me? When will all of this happen? Will we have a voice in the process?

These responses should strike concern with your EMR/EHR implementation team and, to be blunt, stop you dead in your tracks. How successful will this implementation be without the understanding and support of those “in the trenches,” those who will actually be using the EMR/EHR on a daily basis?

One of the keys to a successful implementation is realizing that the true achievements in the project will be realized through staff collaboration. Investment in your employees is a powerful opportunity that an organization cannot afford to miss. In a recent CHIME focus group the participants unanimously agreed that, as verified by their past implementations, success was achieved through “people, people, people.”

Therefore, start by promoting awareness with your staff. Take a grass roots approach, keeping the following in mind for your implementation work plan:

• Start with the basics; educate for full understanding of the EMR/EHR and communicate the project successes and challenges to the organization
• Clinical systems change means a change in culture; be prepared to work hard to achieve acceptance by employing a complete change management program
• Focus on improving patient care; gain insight from those working directly with patients
• Ask for staff volunteers to be a part of the team; plan effectively and manage time requirements for the core team members to promote effective and efficient use of their time and knowledge
• Recognize the current work flows; improve on these processes
• Design and build the system to balance user-ease with efficiency of the system in support organizational goals
• Develop a comprehensive, integrated work-plan with realistic timeframes for completion
• Provide ample and adequate time for training and testing by end-users
• Communicate, communicate, communicate; establish levels of communication, and insure proper distribution of all implementation decisions, with Senior Management reinforcing the project vision and mission on a regular basis
  

Beacon Partners assists clients with a structured approach to successfully implement clinical systems. Through years of experience and with multiple projects behind us, Beacon has developed and employs a process that carefully architects effective project management.

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About the Author
Kathy LePar, RN, MBA

Kathy LePar is a Senior Consultant with Beacon Partners. Kathy’s focus on patient safety initiatives provides clients with both a systematic clinical methodology for reducing medical errors and implementation processes for successful Information Technology integration. In this role she identifies approaches to creating integrated networks to support the health care continuum and effectively apply informatics and clinical solutions that extend nursing care delivery across the breadth of the patient safety scope. Experienced in Nursing Informatics, she provides insight for organizations regarding clinical system implementations focusing on change management, project management, and education and training.

Ms. LePar can be reached at 781-982-8400 ext. 471 or klepar@beaconpartners.com.

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