Training Tips for Implementing your New EMR

By Sheldon Needle

EMR’s come loaded with options, medical practice modules, streamlining techniques. But, unless your employees – physicians included –learn to harness (if not master) most of the modules of the EMR and tailor them to the work-flow of your practice, you will lose the advantages the EMR can bring.

Thus, training in the use and management of the EMR is almost as crucial as your choice of EMR. In fact, when you compare EMR software be sure to investigate the training options the EMR manufacturer, and the consultants who install it offer to a practice like yours. The training and support offered by an EMR vendor is as important as the quality of your EMR software. If you can’t use it correctly, and it doesn’t save you time and effort, it will make your whole practice miserable.

Here are some critical tips to keep in mind regarding training:

1. Understand the workflow of your practice. Chart it out on paper, for starters: who does what? Who follows up on a task. Just charting the progress of a medical prescription from the doctor’s pen to the patient’ pharmacy is a multi-person task. See what tasks may be eliminated or cut short by the use of your prescription module, for instance.

2. Understand who needs to be trained in what: Unless you are a 1-physician doctor’s office, different people generally perform different functions within the practice. Everyone doesn’t do everything, and doesn’t have to be trained in the use of all modules.

If you are dealing with a reputable vendor, the people who are installing your EMR will talk to you first about your workflow and your needs, and tailor and help customize the EMR to meet those needs. They and you will recognize the need to train different people in the use of different modules.

For instance, the people who handle medical practice management and medical insurance claims processing do not need to be expert in the Prescription Drug Tracking Modules. They may need to know how to access the module for reporting purposes, but they do not need to know all of its ins and outs as the doctors and nurses do.

3. Don’t try to implement the whole EMR at once. Virtually all EMR’s are modular, and handle different functions discretely. Since functions are often pretty complex, allow your employees to master a number of critical modules before they move on to others.

4. It is best to train over time. Just as the implementation should be gradual, so should the training. Allow the modules you have trained employees on to be used for a while. Let the use of the system sink in, and become natural, before moving on to another module. There is only so much new material that can be absorbed at once, especially because it is not theoretical. Training has to translate into instincts handled by hands and fingers, as well as thought. Train over months, not days.

5. Appoint and train local experts. Make them in-house trainers themselves. If you are a moderate to large practice, empower one person in each department – business, records, nursing, doctors – to become expert in different areas of the practice. Offer them additional training beyond the most basic. That way, there will be an in-house go to person, and a contact within the practice to talk to training people once the training period has ended.

6. Show appreciation to your employees. If you are asking your employees to come in after hours for training, treat them well: buy them dinner, get them pizza, pay them for their time. There is enough natural resentment in people for having to overturn their normal work routine; do not increase that resentment by not showing y our appreciation for their efforts.

7. Make sure to update and upgrade training when the EMR software is upgraded. We are not living in a static EMR environment. Reporting requirements, and competitive packages, make frequent updates inevitable. Make sure to at least inform, if not formally train, involved employees in software updates that pertain to their daily work.

Be sure you choose a medical software vendor that offers serious training and realizes that customer education is part of his responsibility. Check ratings for medical software training, and request references from the vendor before you make this decision. Your EMR will only function as well as your employees ability to use it.

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