How to Succeed in HIT Implementation: Taking Technological Change to the Next Level

As a CIO or healthcare IT professional, much of your success is dependent on the successes of your end users, co-workers, and customers. The role of IT has changed, though, which has caused the definition of success to evolve, putting you in a position where you can’t afford to mark a project complete upon system installation. In fact, you’ve still got quite a bit of work to do in educating your end users and ensuring their satisfaction, so don’t switch hats completely just yet.
First, here are three tried and true ways to succeed with your next HIT implementation:

Communicate. Schedule training sessions with a qualified individual to provide your organization’s personnel with the education they need. Keep the groups as small as possible to allow for questions and help increase your end users’ confidence.

Train. Allot time on your schedule to follow up with end users or their department heads, and gauge their level of satisfaction with the new HIT system or upgrade. Learn what pain points exist, and seek to find solutions to help improve productivity or efficiency.

Follow up. Allot time on your schedule to follow up with end users or their department heads and gage their level of satisfaction with the new HIT system or upgrade. Learn what pain points exist and seek to find solutions for them, if it will help improve productivity or efficiency.

In this world of fast-evolving technology and complex federal healthcare mandates, it’s no longer enough to keep up with technology. You must employ methods to assist your stakeholders and your organization to be successful. These are just three key ways, but plenty of others exist. Now we’ll dive into more details about how to prepare for a new project.

Analyzing Your In-House IT Team

Let’s say that your healthcare organization is planning a new EHR implementation. This can be quite a complex undertaking and, with all of the roles that today’s CIOs are expected to take on, delegation is crucial. Naturally enough, this involves gaining clarity over the technical skill sets possessed by your healthcare IT team to know how to delegate. Then, after conducting an assessment of each person’s technical knowledge and abilities, consider their soft skills.

People don’t always think about the soft skills possessed by an IT employee, focusing just on the “hard” skill sets. But, as our quick overview above about the importance of communication, educating, and following up shows, soft skills are a vital linchpin in an EMR upgrade or implementation. Here are some of the most important.

Deeper Look at Communication and Training Skills

Assess how well an IT professional communicates with others on the team—their peers—as well as how they can succinctly yet clearly provide their supervisors with crucial updates. Can a member of your IT team explain technical concepts to other employees and teams that don’t understand technical lingo? Can they show other teams how to navigate applications in appropriate ways for their roles—perhaps a team of nurses or insurance specialists? Can they communicate equally as well verbally and in writing?

Organizational Skills

Also, investigate the organizational abilities of your team members. Is there someone, for example, whose skills in this area rise to the top—perhaps making them a candidate for a project management role? Or do they have the organizational skills they need to manage their specific job but wouldn’t necessarily succeed if their role was expanded? How well can each IT member on your in-house team multitask? How well do they manage their time during the day and/or proactively look ahead to schedule tasks to complete an EMR implementation on time?

Creative Problem-Solving Skills

What do in-house IT members do when something goes wrong in the plan and workarounds must be created? If they run into a situation that they’ve never experienced before, how do they look for the right innovative solutions? Are your team members the type who can devise continual improvements in your organization’s workflows, processes, and procedures?

Lifelong Learning

Many of today’s healthcare IT teams are quite busy handling their core tasks. So, it’s not unusual that they won’t be able to keep track of new technologies being developed or compare how each EHR application available today is evolving. When you find people on your in-house IT team who do stay up to date with cutting-edge developments, that’s a real plus.

These soft skills just named are, in fact, just a percentage of the ones needed today for EHR implementations and other tech-related projects that are required to keep healthcare organizations in compliance. Nobody, of course, can possess top-rated abilities with all of the technical skills required as well as all of the soft skills. What you’ll likely discover through this analysis of your own in-house IT team is that you have gaps that need to be augmented before your EHR implementation takes place. In other words, you need to right-size your healthcare IT workforce—and using specialized outsourcing to provide your organization with the EMR implementation support you need can be the perfect solution.

How HealthTECH Resources Can Help With EMR Implementations

First, our outstanding leadership can help your healthcare organization to conduct a skills gap analysis so you know precisely how to supplement your IT team. We’re highly experienced (with more than twenty years of focusing solely on the healthcare IT/EHR/EMR space) and we maintain deep industry connections and an exceptional network of EHR consulting professionals. These experts are available in a wide range of niche areas as consultants, contract-to-hire professionals, and permanent placements.

HealthTECH Resources is a boutique-style agency with a proven track record of success as we provide EMR implementation support and help your healthcare organization to solve complex challenges. To talk about your unique requirements, please contact us online today!