Health Imaging & IT - April 2008 - (Page 45)

IT Training: Physician Training Done Right When implementing a health IT system or CPOE, a well thought-out training program is essential. Administrators, system administrators and physicians recommend the following steps: › aggressively sign physicians up for training. Don’t passively wait for doctors to sign up for training classes. Assign staff to follow up via phone and get every physician signed up for a training class. If some doctors don’t show up, call them again and get them to participate. › provide plenty of opportunities for retraining. Even if a physician has attended a training session, it doesn’t mean that he or she necessarily “gets” how the system works. If a doctor is clearly flummoxed, keep working with him or her until the training sticks. At LifeBridge, one physician needed eight separate training sessions to become fluent in the technology. › go to satellite and physicians’ offices. In addition to or in place of bringing physicians together for a training session in a classroom, you can send the trainers to the physicians. Whether physicians are in their offices, in a reading area or on the floors, taking the training to where they are rather than expecting them to come to you can boost training and ultimate compliance. › experiment with interim steps. Going cold turkey from an entirely paper reporting system to an automated system is a big leap—placing an interim step in the process can lessen resistance. St. Peter’s starts physicians with a checklist of the options available on the structured reporting form so they can get used to using and checking options off on the pick list, then transitions them to the computer system once they are comfortable with that in-between step. › Beef up support staff. In the days before the system goes live, make sure to have adequate vendor trainers and well-trained, in-house super-users on hand. If necessary, pull regular staff off other duties, train them and place them in visible locations throughout the areas where the physicians will be working. › clearly identify support staff. When going live, identify vendor and internal support staff clearly by having them wear bright lab coats or with some other identifying mark, so doctors who need help have no doubt of where to get it. LifeBridge brought Cerner coaches in and also assigned internal staff to be available, clearly identifying them in bright blue vests on the floors. › Bugs are inevitable. Regardless of how much testing and preparation you’ve one, bugs will pop up in the system once it goes live. LifeBridge implemented a version of emergency response during the days that the system went live, meeting with key personnel three times a day and putting out memos hospital wide detailing any problems. › keep the directions posted and available. Just because you’ve given out zillions of copies of the directions on how to log in and use the system doesn’t mean that physicians will necessarily have them on hand when they go to log in. So keep the directions that walk through the process clearly visible and on-hand on every floor and reading area where a physician might access the system. St. Peter’s Healthcare makes sure that trained techs are available for on-the-spot help in places where doctors are doing procedures, such as in the cath lab. Healthimaging.com april 2008 | Health Imaging & IT 45 http://Healthimaging.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Health Imaging & IT - April 2008

Health Imaging & IT - April 2008 Contents On the Web The Enterprise News Update Cracking Down: CT Radiation Dose 3D Rendering: Options Galore Thinking Thin-Client Modality Review Ergonomics & Design Special Section: Storage Strategies Imaging Tools Technology Outlook People & Technology Technology Review IT Trends Reader's Resource Stat Sheet

Health Imaging & IT - April 2008

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