Change management for healthcare professionals (or people who don’t sit at a desk all day!)
It seems like we are inundated with information all day long. Day in and day out, email pop-up after pop-up, Slack messages, IMs, Jabber, Teams, text messages. It’s exhausting to keep up. So frankly, some people don’t.
Doctors spend on average 5.9 hours a day[1] on the computer, in EHRs and scheduling software. They’re constantly looking for ways to get off the computer and get more time with their patients. Why would they care if their hospital is upgrading to Office 365? Or if they are getting a new time entry system? Their concern is patient care.
Using traditional change management and communications strategies for these medical professionals is bound to fail. Their time is best spent on the floor — caring for patients, not checking emails. We need to take creative approaches to communicate technology changes to this population. It only takes a few small changes to make a difference in your change management approach.
Delivery method matters
If we know people don’t read emails, why are we still using them? When delivering messages of change to clinical staff, take advantage of existing vehicles. Some hospitals use Microsoft Teams for care coordination and inter-departmental messaging. This way all of their communication stays in one place and doesn’t disappear. If your hospital has existing messaging mechanisms, use them. Don’t add new vehicles or new newsletters for your project. To most end users, your project is not that special and can be part of other business updates.
Because clinical staff may be on the go, content should also be on the go. Consider building a microsite that can be accessible via personal device. If staff are at home on their phone, they could get the information they needed without logging onto a VPN or other intranet. Similarly, brief podcasts with quick 2–5 minute segments can provide easy listening for those walking between buildings on campus.
Meet them where they are
Clinical staff are most valuable when they are on the floor, serving patients. So get on the floor with them. Make a 3-minute announcement at their floor meeting or team meeting. Build relationships with end users by showing up to their meetings and working with administration to make introductions in their place of work, not yours.
Enact change agents to spread the word organically rather than with rigid structure. It’s great in theory to have weekly change agent meetings with live demos and Q&A. In reality, your change agents are multi-tasking and thinking about the next things in their day. Arm them with self-service information that they can disseminate easily and on their own time.
Provide change agents with collateral that they can use on their terms. For example, short print-outs with key information like Go Live date, where to find help, and change agent information should be sufficient. Attaching a candy or coffee coupon to these never hurts either!
Keep it to the point
Your new time entry system may have approximately 4,308 new benefits for the organization. The clinical staff only wants to know about 2 of them — will it save me time and is it easy to use. Let the end users know what is in it for them but focus on the key 2–3 things they care about. They shouldn’t have to fish through a message to find things like Go Live date, support model and the link to access the system. Bullet points are great for this type of information. Empower your change agents with brief talking points that are specific for their group of end users to avoid over-complication of topics.
Conclusion
Many of these principles are simple but often times get lost in the noise of a new technology roll-out. Thinking creatively about change management for clinical staff may be a change of pace for those of us change practitioners who are used to e-newsletters, conference calls and office life. A few small changes can improve your change management results for technology roll-outs for clinical staff.
Thank you to Fanny Wu, Jeff Race and Catherine Augustyn.
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