Electronic Health Record (EHR) implementation and upgrade training are critical to getting the most out of your NextGen EHR. Here are the vital considerations for NextGen EHR training.
Why is NextGen EHR Training Important?
NextGen EHR training is an investment in the future of your practice. Without proper training, your practice will not realize the full benefits of EHR implementation, including improved efficiency, higher-quality care, and reduced costs. Training should be a critical ingredient in your NextGen implementation plan. It would be best if you planned to conduct training both before and after implementation to ensure all clinicians and non-clinical staff understand how to use NextGen properly.
If your staff does not know how to complete critical daily tasks in your NextGen EHR before roll-out or an upgrade, the transition will be more difficult, time-consuming, and frustrating than necessary. While NextGen EMR is designed to be intuitive and easy to use, busy clinicians and office staff do not have the time or resources to figure out a new system on their own. Additionally, to get the most out of NextGen Healthcare software, your practice must redesign workflows. Such redesign can not be accomplished with a piecemeal approach to EHR training, but instead relies on consistent, comprehensive integration of NextGen into your practice. Training is, therefore, a key ingredient in NextGen EHR implementation, upgrades, and workflow redesign.
Studies have shown that EHR training improves practice efficiency. Physicians receiving high-quality EHR training reported higher satisfaction with their EHR system, and training has been shown to reduce the risk of physician burnout.
Who Needs to Be Trained?
All staff in your practice who will interact with your NextGen EHR need training, including clinicians and non-clinical staff. However, the depth and timing of training will vary among your team. For example, many training programs use a “train-the-trainer” or “superuser” approach. Under this approach, a small group of staff receives extensive NextGen training to act as subject matter experts (SMEs) for the remainder of the team. All other staff still receive formal training, but a shorter course. The superuser staff then serve as internal trainers, ready to provide others in your practice with tips, tricks, and techniques for using your NextGen EHR. This approach allows your practice to rely on internal support for common questions. It also ensures that your practice has access to NextGen experts who are deeply familiar with your workflows and needs.
Across all staff, training should occur as close to your NextGen EHR roll-out as possible to minimize learning loss. It would help if you also planned to provide additional, post-implementation training to ensure staff fully understand how to use NextGen to accomplish everyday tasks.
Key NextGen EHR Training Areas for Clinicians
To the extent possible, tailor clinician NextGen training to each clinician’s technological skill level, practice needs, and schedule. In multi-specialty practices, aim training towards specific specialties. For example, a physical therapist’s workflow and training needs may look very different from a pediatrician’s workflow and training needs.
NextGen training for clinicians should focus on creating a solid foundation in areas of every day clinical use. Then, as clinicians become comfortable with NextGen, your practice can move on to more advanced features. Training should begin with basic EHR features like reviewing and updating patient information, documenting visits, creating clinical notes, ordering tests and prescriptions, reviewing test results, and creating and managing care plans. Train clinicians on interactive features like:
Generating patient-specific instructions and integrated care plans
Receiving and sending secure electronic communications (direct messaging) to other clinicians or patients
Identifying and providing appropriate educational or support resources to patients, families, and caregivers
Training on more advanced features, like clinical decision support, order management, and quality dashboards, is also essential to achieving your quality goals. However, such training should not be conducted until clinicians are comfortable completing daily tasks in NextGen.
Key Training Areas for Non-Clinical Roles
Most non-clinical staff in your practice will also interact with your NextGen EHR. These staff members should receive training focused on their specific needs. Non-clinical staff can also serve as superusers, helping clinicians and non-clinicians alike transition to NextGen Healthcare software. Training for non-clinical staff, like that for clinical staff, should be tailored to each person’s technological capabilities and business needs.
Your NextGen EHR can simplify routine administrative tasks handled by non-clinical staff like appointment scheduling, pre-appointment tasks, coding and billing, and record requests. Non-clinical front office staff will need to be trained to handle appointment requests, input pre-visit information like insurance details, and schedule follow-ups. Billing departments will need to be trained to look up insurance information, diagnosis and procedure codes, and message clinicians as needed for clarification. Finally, non-clinical staff will need training in how to fulfill medical record requests with NextGen Document Management and assist with the completion of record requests using NextGen.
Workflow Redesign
Your NextGen EHR can facilitate higher-quality, more efficient care, but implementation and training alone do not guarantee these improvements. Workflow redesign is the process of examining how your practice currently accomplishes tasks, identifying bottlenecks or inefficiencies, and creating new workflows that rely on your NextGen EHR to promote efficient and high-quality care. NextGen implementation, paired with workflow redesign, can improve your quality scores, reduce patient wait times, increase the quality of your patient history data, reduce time spent on prescribing, and ease coding and billing requirements. Your NextGen training program should be developed after the workflow redesign process to ensure that the training focuses on the new, efficient workflows.
How TempDev Can Help
TempDev offers NextGen EHR training with your practice’s needs in mind. TempDev’s NextGen training consultants recognize that physicians often do not have significant time to devote to a training schedule, so they develop tailored training plans for each physician. With TempDev as your trainer, your practice will get sequenced training that starts with the most-used parts of the NextGen EHR. TempDev also provides quick-reference documents to answer common questions, and TempDev’s trainers use screenshots from your NextGen EHR system to eliminate confusion.
Call us at 888.TEMP.DEV, or contact us here to get started with your NextGen EHR training.
Interested?
Agree with our point of view? Become our client!
Please submit your business information and a TempDev representative will follow up with you within 24 hours.
