The KLAS Arch Collaborative this week released new findings, detailing how some healthcare organizations are delivering “elite” electronic health record experiences for their nurses and doctors.
The report shows that EHR speed and user experience can be enhanced by aligning strategic priorities around these issues and “moving from an ‘us versus them’ mentality to a shared ‘we’ that includes both leaders and clinicians,” said KLAS researchers.
WHY IT MATTERS
Approximately 45% of U.S. health systems have measured clinician EHR satisfaction through the Arch Collaborative’s EHR Experience Survey, and many healthcare organizations are making “great progress” improving user satisfaction, researchers said in the KLAS State of the Industry report.
“The myth that clinicians will never be happy with the EHR is untrue – many healthcare organizations are making great progress toward improving their clinicians’ EHR experiences,” said researchers.
Nurses, in particular, credited their satisfaction to ongoing training and “superuser” support with improving their EHR proficiency, while doctors credited artificial intelligence documentation assistants.
Both nurses and doctors cited enhanced EHR usability and patient communication tools.
For this inaugural annual report, KLAS also introduced new EHR experience levels, ranging from Level 1, Poor EHR experience to Level 6, Elite EHR experience, to help organizations consistently measure against.
Among organizations reporting metrics, 22% of nurses and 18% of physicians reported strong (Level 5) or elite (Level 6) experiences.
“Most organizations hit a ceiling at a moderate EHR experience (Level 4),” researchers said. “Achieving the highest EHR experience levels doesn’t happen by chance.”
Researchers said 35% of nurses reported spending three or more hours per week on unproductive charting, while 47% of ambulatory physicians cited excessive message volume for poorer EHR experiences.
Another cause of earning reports of mediocrity is slow EHR response times, which include login, WiFi and other challenges.
“Poor EHR response times can frustrate other aspects of clinicians’ experiences, though they often tolerate this issue because they don’t know that the problem can be fixed,” the researchers said. “Most healthcare leaders do not realize that many clinicians struggle with slow EHR response times.”
But by working closely with their EHR vendors to examine clinicians’ EHR experiences, organizational leaders can identify the causes and address them.
At a high level, an elite EHR experience requires revamped interfaces and easier navigation to quickly surface data and complete tasks, EHR governance structures that involve clinicians in decision-making and a culture of shared values, teamwork and a patient-first mentality.
In addition, effective communication around EHR-related changes and disseminating onboarding education that prepares users for their specific workflows and personalization, “so that the system works the way users think,” are imperative, KLAS researchers said.
They then highlighted success stories of organizations that intentionally focus on developing elite EHR experiences.
One example focused on EHR support and shared ownership. The governance board at Children’s Nebraska, a KLAS 2024 EHR Experience Pinnacle Award Winner, standardizes decisions to prevent inconsistencies when simplifying the EHR.
Another example featured UTHealth Houston’s efforts to empower physicians to make module changes and embed EHR champions within each department to help their peers.
“When rolling out a new EHR module, the organization’s shared ownership committees and councils disseminated information and provided support to clinicians,” researchers said.
THE LARGER TREND
Health IT that simplifies care delivery is vital, especially systems that improve doctor-patient relationships, said Kem Graham, vice president of growth and strategy at CliniComp.
“Most important, ensure your workforce has collaborative involvement in technology decisions, particularly your end users and frontline clinicians,” she told Healthcare IT News earlier this year.
“These boots-on-the-ground professionals should have a significant voice in addressing [challenges] and implementing new systems, as their workflows and patient interaction may be directly impacted by any changes that are adopted.”
ON THE RECORD
“Our culture has improved because we invested in improving the clinicians’ experience,” one healthcare executive told KLAS during the study. “There are innumerable factors to culture, but we have created a strong presence with our providers.”
“We let them know we are listening to them and making changes,” the executive added. “We get in front of the providers every quarter to let them know about major changes that are coming based on the pain points they have reported. I think this matters a lot.”
Andrea Fox is senior editor of Healthcare IT News.
Email: afox@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.
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