Home » Readers Write » Currently Reading:

Readers Write: Tips for Selecting EMR Training and Activation Support Vendors

November 20, 2017 Readers Write No Comments

Tips for Selecting EMR Training and Activation Support Vendors
By Kevin Smith

image

Kevin Smith is CEO of TrainingWheel of Fort Myers, FL.

The contracted EMR vendor often does not deliver experienced staff for the activation. The go-live is the first time some of the vendor’s elbow support resources enter a hospital without being a patient or family member.

Here are a few helpful tips based on lessons learned to save organizations time and money:

  • Know what the organization wants and what it is paying for. Consider more than the proposed training and support cost. For example, the cost may be different because the vendor provides licensed clinicians, while others may provide non-clinical rounders with no hospital for a lower cost.
  • Insufficient planning can lead to less-experienced resources. What recourse does the contract include? If a bank teller or oil rigger joined the firm last week, are they prepared to help the clinicians? A body is not what matters to the clinicians. They want someone helpful to them as they learn how to do their work using new tools.
  • Ask the vendors to provide resumes, CVs, immunization records, background checks, and proof of experience in advance. Vendors often slide inexperienced people into a project and shuffle them around. They want to maintain high resource numbers, but the clinicians are not getting the support.
  • Does the vendor rely on one or more third-party companies to provide trainers and support staff? If so, it will be hard to know what type of resources are being provided. This is important because many vendors subcontract to the same companies. There may be two different bids, but the organization ends up with the same subcontracted company. If the primary vendor can’t answer basic support questions, the organization may already be in trouble. An experienced vendor will match clinical support personnel to support areas based on their clinical role and/or experience.
  • Can the vendor present a full project cost proposal with a support schedule, detailed expense projection, and a list of their proposed resources after one walk-through of the facility? Staffing ratios help, but are not always accurate. If a vendor doesn’t understand the makeup of the organization’s staff and the layout of the facility, how can they give an accurate estimate of clinical support resources?
  • Does the vendor develop curriculum and clinical scenario-based training or does training simply cover system functionality? If training only covers functionality, then users will require more elbow support because they won’t be prepared to use the system for their real-time clinical workflow. The #1 complaint from clinicians in EMR training is that it only teaches them navigation and what each click does. This leaves clinicians anxious and also forces every clinician to come up with their own approaches and workflows.
  • Can the vendor recognize issues in the build and offer recommendations based on past client experiences? The training partner should be an asset to the team, identifying issues in the build that may come up during the training. Better to know this ahead of time and make corrections than during or after the go-live. Make sure the organization and the vendor have a joint commitment to be open and sharing in this regard.
  • Does the vendor pursue continued improvement and feedback? Are they as committed to quality as the organization?

Vendor involvement is an integral part of implementation success. As an organization, ask the necessary questions to guarantee the right vendors are selected.



HIStalk Featured Sponsors

     







Text Ads


RECENT COMMENTS

  1. We live in the attention economy. Not saying that's a good thing, but it's a reality of life that the…

  2. @SayCheese 100% agree - I think we've come to expect this behavior from vendors and consultants, for better or worse…

  3. I rarely comment on topics, but this topic does chap me a bit. I’ve read your blog since you started…

Founding Sponsors


 

Platinum Sponsors


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gold Sponsors