Implementation Process of the EHR Change

EHR System
Implementation Process of the EHR Change
In recent time, electronic health records (EHRs) have been carried out by a progressively greater number of hospitals across the globe. At the present moment, the small rural hospital will largely benefit from the implementation of EHRs. The following are the steps that could be undertaken in the implementation process of EHR for the hospital:
1. The first phase would encompass delineating all of the tasks and practices necessitated to be carried out by the physicians, IT staff, as well as practice managers. The fundamental tasks in this phase comprise of scheduling the implementation, patients and practice data migration, formation of a training program and delineating critical success factors and assessment strategies.
2. The implementation committee is thereafter selected. This includes project manager, application analyst and developer, physician advocate, nursing advocate, billing advocate, training managers.
3. Different departments will be involved in this implementation. To begin with, the IT department will be liable for data migration and cleansing as well as the customization of the EHR system. The quality assurance department will also be involved and will be responsible for testing the system and performance. The nursing and medical department will be involved and this will include nurses and physicians. Furthermore, the billing and finance department will be liable for determining how to price services and incorporate it into the system. Lastly, the human resource department will also be part of the implementation through training and tutoring (Beeson, 2017).
The advantages of incorporating other departments are that it will be possible to ensure that the hospital as a whole benefits from the EHR system. This ensures that every department provides input concerning their expertise. However, the disadvantage is that this might slow down the process of implementation.
Dealing with Resistance to EHR Change
It should be anticipated that not all stakeholders such as physicians, nurses and administrators at the rural hospital will be on board all at once and therefore there is expected resistance to change. One of the key strategies of dealing with this resistance is communication. This will include communicating the reasons for implementing EHR, the benefits in general and at an individual level, and also the expected changes to procedures, roles and responsibilities (Lind, 2014). Another approach is the provision of ongoing training to unveil the new functionality that might be beneficial to them and also additional insight. An additional strategy for dealing with resistance would be by leveraging the personnel within the clinical who embraced the HER system and any novel practices by motivating others to seek them out as trainers and coaches in the event of facing challenges using HER. Another approach is ascertaining the root cause driving the resistance and also permitting for anonymous feedback if individuals fear raining their problems publicly (Barrett, 2018).
Monitoring Success of the New EHR System
The success of the new EHR system could be monitored in various ways. One of the ways is to ascertain whether there is increased patient engagement and satisfaction. This can be monitored through patient surveys, which enable them to provide beneficial feedback. An additional way in which the success of the EHR system could be monitored is by the speed in which patient files and records are accessed and information relayed to different departments. In addition, this could be measured by the decrease in the rate of misplaced or lost patient files. EHR systems are also linked to improvement in health care quality. Therefore, to monitor the success of the system, this could be measured by the decline in the rates of adverse medication events. The same is through improvement in the health care rendered. For instance, this could be measured quality improvement in monitoring the control of blood pressure for chronic kidney disease care (Ohno-Machado, 2013).
Importance of EHR Change to Success of the Hospital
This change is critical to the success of the hospital in different ways. First of all, EHR implementation will facilitate improvement in health care quality and also help in the convenience of health care for both providers and patients. This will be attained through fast-paced accessibility to patient records, augmented decision support, medical information as well as intelligible and complete documentation that facilitates precise coding and billing (HealthIT.gov, 2013). Secondly, EHR will increase the hospital’s patient participation in the care received, which is particularly imperative in the management and treatment of chronic medical conditions (HealthIT.gov, 2013). Third, EHR will improve care coordination within the hospital. This is through the integration and organization of patient health information and enables its immediate distribution amongst all of the healthcare personnel participating in the patient’s care. An additional way in which the hospital will attain success owing to EHR is through improved diagnostics and patient outcomes. Specifically, EHRs can augment the capability to diagnose illnesses, diminish or even prevent medical mistakes thereby improving patient results. Lastly, EHR will bring about efficiencies and cost savings. This is through decreased transcription expenses, decreased medical errors, and also diminished storage and re-filing expenses (HealthIT.gov, 2013).





References
Barrett, A. K. (2018). Electronic Health Record (EHR) Organizational Change: Explaining Resistance Through Profession, Organizational Experience, and EHR Communication Quality. Health communication, 33(4), 496-506.
Beeson, K. (2017). EHR Implementation Plan: Your 8-Step Checklist. EHR In Practice. Retrieved 2 October, 2018 from: https://www.ehrinpractice.com/ehr-implementation-plan.html
HealthIT.gov. (2013). Benefits of EHRs. Retrieved 2 October, 2018 from: https://www.healthit.gov/topic/health-it-basics/benefits-ehrs
Lind, T. (2014). Change and resistance to change in health care: Inertia in sociotechnical systems (Doctoral dissertation, Uppsala University).
Ohno-Machado, L. (2013). Electronic health records: monitoring the return on large investments. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 20(e1), e1-e1.