Advancements in healthcare technology are dependent on adoption by clinicians. Clinician adoption will only happen, however, when significant investments are made in staff training and in coming up with a more user-friendly system design. Once those issues have been addressed, then Electronic Health Records (EHR) and other emerging healthcare technology will be able to realize their full potential.
Unfortunately, many healthcare organizations have not reached a point where staff training and system design have progressed enough to ensure widespread clinician adoption. Too often, doctors resist using a computer or tablet to avoid frustration. When using functions such as Clinical Decision Support (CDS), they often become overwhelmed and eventually fatigued by system alerts. These behaviors serve to undermine the benefits of the technology and stifle wide spread adoption. As a result, technology’s impact has not come anywhere close to what it could be -- yet.
The challenge for informatics departments is to improve in these areas so that technology can deliver on its original promise. When that does inevitably happen, the current focus on implementing new systems will shift toward optimization and leveraging the technology to its full capability.
The result of such continuous training sessions should be to make clinicians more comfortable with the technology and increase their understanding of the benefits that directly affect them.
These could include more time to focus on unusual patient cases or more interaction time with patients once EHR and related technologies (like natural language processing) mature. Although clinicians may initially only see the cumbersome aspects of changes to their workflow, as they see the patient care benefits unfold, they will begin to embrace the technology.Many healthcare systems do not currently work together. This is a huge hurdle to wide scale technological advancement and innovation. This can be seen in the haphazard way that EHR must often be transferred between institutions.
Continuity care documents are often faxed PDFs, and certain systems do not interact even within the same institution. Technological advancements on the horizon, such as increased use of personal medical devices for monitoring as well as AI, depend on systems being linked to each other. Interoperability challenges and increasing integration between different technologies will be an important focus for both leading organizations and those trying to catch up.
Informatics departments will increasingly need to ensure that they have experts, who can lead interoperability projects and help to bring about further integration throughout organizations. This will ensure the effectiveness of new technologies and provide for better patient outcomes.
The design of machine learning technology and its ability to connect with other systems and devices is foundational in ensuring the next level of innovation. A strong command of this technology is essential for institutions. IT applications must be able to work together, or much of technology’s potential cannot be realized. In trying to achieve better patient outcomes through these technologies, interoperability may be the greatest challenge of all. Informaticists have to help find ways to overcome these hurdles.
Learn more about how emerging technologies are leading to exciting healthcare innovations by downloading our latest eBook "The Future of Healthcare: How Technology Could Change the Way Healthcare is Administered".