Struggles ranging from medical mistakes to staff burnout and turnover sting your healthcare organization like a bee, hitting operations and patient care hard. And so much of this stems from the technology you use. Break the pattern of burnout at the source with a fresh approach to electronic health record (EHR) training.
Ready to ditch the long hours and frustration and transform organizational processes? Explore the connection between EHR training and burnout, and discover how to empower staff to use the software effectively.
How does poor EHR training lead to burnout?
Wrong-fit, ineffective EHR training contributes to burnout across healthcare organizations by causing confusion and inefficiencies, increasing risk, and cutting into patient care. The right training approach takes into account how your organization works to make your team stronger.
Seventy-five percent of healthcare workers experiencing burnout already blame their EHR. Drive down this number by overcoming a few EHR training missteps.
RELYING ON Vendor-only tRAINING ISN'T ENOUGH
Vendor-provided EHR training offers valuable foundational knowledge of software features and functions. To fully optimize your system's potential, complement this training with customized in-house sessions that address your organization's specific requirements, such as:
• Setup configurations
• Custom templates
• Organizational workflows
This combined approach ensures your team gains both technical proficiency and practical expertise tailored to your unique operational needs.
Don’t leave staff members to learn the specific nuances of the EHR deployment on their own. Add specialized, in-house sessions to supplement vendor support and tailor your EHR training program to prevent burnout.Generic training isn’t applicable to specific user groups
EHR training is often a burden for busy healthcare staffers because it’s irrelevant to their roles. As a result, it feels like one more to-do item to check off that takes time away from necessary tasks and/or patient care.
And if these training sessions don’t cover what teams really need to know, it catches up—fast. Frustrated and burned-out staffers spend 1-2 hours of “pajama time” in the EHR charting after hours and developing workarounds to reduce note bloat and excessive clicks.
Role-based EHR training in-house can right the ship. Clinicians who received specialty-specific training agree that they’re almost 25 times more likely to get what they need from the EHR.
Inadequate training impacts learning and adoption
If you don’t understand something, you’re less likely to use it—and poorly trained staffers feel the same about a new EHR. This zaps efficiency and increases feelings of burnout because they don’t understand what the EHR can do.
While some of this can come from stubbornness to adapt, it’s just as much about logistics. Clinicians juggling hectic schedules often can’t attend EHR training sessions, leaving them to learn an unknown platform on the fly and having domino effects, including:
- Higher risks for mistakes
- Inefficient data entry
- Less time for patients
How can healthcare organizations improve EHR training to prevent burnout?
Put your staff—the end users—first. Take a look at the big picture, from how your organization operates to each individual role, and how to bake training into your culture to tailor EHR training in ways that help users de-stress.
Customize training for your organization.
Collaborate internally and externally to customize EHR training. Start by going straight to the source and discussing with end users across roles and functions what they need from the EHR and its training to be successful.
With this knowledge in mind, work with your EHR vendor to ensure the software can meet these needs, and tailor every angle of your training programs, including:
- Courses
- Agendas
- User manuals
- Quick reference guides
Personalize training by role.
Effective EHR training should set up each role to successfully perform their jobs every day. And because this looks drastically different between clinicians, IT staffers, and administrators, the lessons they learn need to match.
Consider key workflows across teams and personalize training accordingly. For instance:
- Clinician training may spotlight charting and decision support
- IT training could center on configuration and troubleshooting
- Administrative training might include practice scheduling or claims processing
Staff who receive workflow-related training are less likely to report burnout, so equip them with EHR training that creates clarity to perform tasks right the first time.
Offer just-in-time support.
Enable users to get on-demand EHR training and support throughout their workflows. To do this, you can program bite-sized help content, such as walkthrough videos and quick tips, directly into your EHR.Give team members the tools to find exactly what they need in the moment. They’ll move on to the next task without submitting more help tickets!
Adopt a continuous learning mindset.
Ensure teams keep using your EHR software correctly and efficiently by offering ongoing training. Experts recommend fostering this continuous learning approach with 3-5 hours of refresher training per year, broken into 15- to 60-minute sessions.
Self-guided EHR training is especially effective because staff members can review the materials around their busy schedules. With a few minutes to spare, they can dig into:
- Videos
- Webinars
- FAQs
And your organization feels the impact too. For instance, clinicians who participate in self-guided learning save 20-25 minutes per week in the EHR for every 15 minutes of learning.
Alleviate staff burnout with personalized EHR training.
Burnout often stems from inefficient processes and technology that doesn’t support the unique way clinicians work, and it all begins with EHR training. By developing a program specifically for your staff's needs, you can ease workloads—not add to them. Juno EHR is highly configurable and user-friendly, so you can mold it to your needs and tailor training programs to help your team thrive.
Schedule a meeting today to learn how Juno Health supercharges teams with training that simplifies their workflows.
