Provide support
There was still one important factor to consider: Even if everyone at Saddleback made the switch to using computers for documenting records and never looked back, the switch would be a disaster if the people weren’t trained to use those computers.
“We stuck to our guns and said, ‘We’re very, very certain this is the right thing to do, and we promise to help you through it. We promise that we will not leave any physician behind,’” he says. “At the same time, we are not going to let you
g
o back to paper. That would have been the worst thing we could have done.”
So Geidt had to make sure he provided the tools to help his physicians and staff adapt. Training was provided to 100 percent of Saddleback’s physicians and staff. The key was to get everyone comfortable with the technology, because each employee would be using it every day. However, the training process created a new challenge. Where do you start when your employees are all at different levels of technology aptitude?
“Frankly, physicians are people just like our staff,” he says. “They don’t want to necessarily look unprofessional or stupid in front of their peers. These are people at the top of their profession. … These people saves lives every day. Then you stick them in front of a computer in front of a large class of their peers? It’s just not a comfortable thing.”
Geidt’s strategy was to give the physicians personal attention. He created a team of helpful individuals who already had a good grasp of the system and made them the support system for the physicians or any staff member who needed help.
“These folks would do anything for these physicians, day or night — come to their office, come to their home, set up some of the subsystems, teach them, train them and help them.”
The support team brought a positive attitude to the project for the entire lead-up period to the launch of the electronic system and smoothed the transition by continuing to provide help for about six months after the launch.
“Once we did go live and made this change in this big-bang fashion, we were at their elbow constantly, for months and months until they got completely comfortable with it,” Geidt says. “We never let up on providing the support. We’ll help them through it — we will not let you fail.
“When the physicians saw that, over the course of years, they realized if we are going to invest that kind of resource into this system, the least they could do is suffer through the learning curve and make it work.”
Once your employees get past the challenge of learning a completely new system, then all of a sudden the benefits that accrue from the electronic system make more sense.
“Some of that is fuzzy when the dust is being stirred up during that whole learning curve process,” Geidt says.
Many organizations that attempted a major change and ended in failure simply never made it through the learning curve. Geidt says there are several reasons for that, including poor articulation of the vision, a lack of preparation for the change or insufficient employee training.
From day one of the planning process, Geidt knew those issues were going to make or break the change. So he focused on communicating every facet of the plan, getting everyone on board, making sure each person was properly trained, creating the support team and investing resources to make sure the plan didn’t fail.
“It was a big investment, but there was potential for a big return on that investment if we did it right,” he says. “Doing it right involved everyone being engaged in the outcome. It worked so well that we began to reap the benefits literally the day we turned it on.”
In retrospect, Geidt says the switch was one of the most successful things he’s ever done at Saddleback. It improved safety by reducing the potential for errors, improved clinical outcomes, saved the organization money on paper costs, helped the environment and allowed hospital personnel to spend more time caring for patients.
“This is our new way of doing business,” he says. “It’s not about plugging it in and getting comfortable and then backing off. We can’t back off on this one. We’ve reinvested in this level of support to ensure that everyone gets it. It’s made our lives better in so many ways, but it wasn’t easy.”
HOW TO REACH: Saddleback Memorial Medical Center, (949) 837-4500 orwww.memorialcare.org/Saddleback
