Change Management Strategies for an Effective EMR ... - HiMSS

Chapter 1: Th e Business Case for Change Management 7
• Ineffi ciencies uncovered because the system creates transparency.
• Workarounds that become quickly entrenched.
• Pressure to get through the day can override doing what is right.
• User work/life balance issues coming into play from the very
beginning.
All of these factors create problems for implementation teams that
just want to install technology! How do you eff ectively address the
people issues? Or is it easier to just install the technology and assume
that people will learn because they have to use it? Some on the implementation
team may falsely assume that users of an EMR system will
snap into place over time and do what is right for the organization.
Th is thinking is a fool’s paradise.
In the foreword to this book, Dave Garets made the point that EMR
deployments are not about technology but about equipping organizations
to reach critical business objectives by providing employees with
technical capabilities that make new things possible and by engaging
them in changing their behavior to eff ectively use the new capabilities
to generate desired results.
With all due respect to the technical side of an EMR implementation,
installing the technology is only half the battle. Th is is not to
degrade the importance of the technology. Th e fact that we spend a lot
of money researching technology, acquiring it, confi guring it, installing
it, and supporting it speaks to its importance. If we weren’t implementing
EMRs, we wouldn’t even be having a discussion about EMRrelated
change management!