Identify Best Practices for Training And Educating Health Care Providers and Leadership on Informatics Competencies

Informatics-driven implementations can be a tough sell for healthcare providers and leaders, often leaving them struggling to understand and embrace the changes. Our informatics team increased user engagement and retention of informatics concepts for both providers and leaders by implementing evidence-based practices that leveraged a combination of multimedia and in-person support.

First, we revamped our provider EHR onboarding program, slashing the original 2-day training in half. The user starts with an online journey of 12 short 10-minute modules tailored to their practice specialty. The interactive modules strategically incorporate the nationally accolated Mayer’s 12 Principles of Multimedia Learning and accommodate different learning styles, which are scientifically proven to enhance the user’s learning by aligning with their natural brain process of receiving multimedia information.

The EHR live training is the second step of the onboarding program, creating specialty-focused curricula that reiterate key points of the modules, but also demonstrate the navigation and workflow of a provider’s day within the EHR. The training allots time for questions, personalization of user settings, troubleshooting common mishaps, and review of the latest implementations by Informatics. The training is broken down into a general session plus a breakout session or two, depending on the specialty track of the user. This strategically allows for a personalized onboarding experience for the provider and the training of multiple specialties at once, ensuring a quick, yet thorough, preparation for the patient floors.

Post-live training, our users receive 30 and 60-day check-ins, presenting them with their analytics surrounding documentation and navigation of the EHR, and then providing tidbits on improving their efficiency, as applicable. The onboarding program earned the accreditation of continuing medical education (CME), in which our providers also receive credit hours toward their medical license renewals. As a result of this robust program, we have observed a remarkable shift in the quality of questions we receive, and a 25% decrease in re-education sessions across our users.

Another approach we have taken is to launch an EHR course for leaders, with the intention to increase the EHR aptitude of the team supporting the providers and reinforce the concepts learned in their training. Although we recently launched this course, we have noted a preliminary increase in EHR aptitude of 28% on average, with two users increasing their aptitude by 67%.

In-person rounds have also proven to be a valuable best practice and an immense source of support for our providers and leaders, often leading to many needed optimizations to the EHR, and empowering our users to use their voice for the betterment of their workflows.

Other best practices include creating one-page visually aesthetic flyers and producing two-minute overview videos with crisp instructional design for our larger initiatives. These are loaded onto via a QR code and quickly shared while we conduct in-person rounding on the floors.

This combination of best practices has proven to encompass a well-rounded training program, targeting the various aspects of the user’s work life, their learning styles, and the natural workflows within their practice.