Three Takeaways for Physician Leaders Implementing Health IT Initiatives

Joseph Kim, MD, an expert in the field, calls for feedback from all levels, a customized approach and a focus on technology’s benefits.

Joseph Kim, MD, MPH, MBA, the president of Q Synthesis, a health care education and quality improvement company, offers three recommendations for physician leaders implementing health care IT initiatives in their organizations.

USE MORE OF AN INTER-PROFESSIONAL APPROACH.

“Get user feedback from nursing staff, medical assistants, even the patient level, if you are able to. There has been so much discussion around things like dyads, whether it’s a pairing of physician and admin, or physician-nurse. But it’s got to go beyond just a doc and nurse. You have to involve much more than that. Ideally, get to even that patient level. That whole inter-professional approach, that participatory component.”

CUSTOMIZE YOUR APPROACH BASED ON LOCAL MARKET OR SYSTEM.

“A lot of the articles, the stories, the how-to tips are very general and speak to things in very general terms. If you are in a system, say, in Florida, and you’ve got independent docs plus employee docs, and you kind of go down that list, your approach is going to be very different than if you are a Kaiser [Permanente], or if you’re somewhere else, where your model and the makeup are very different. … Know your local market, your infrastructure and tailor your approach that way.”

FOCUS MORE ON PRACTICAL BENEFITS.

“Everyone is so overburdened, and they are burning out and they are complaining. And yet they know at a high level it might lead to better patient care, they kind of understand that at a very high level. But for many of them it’s just not practical, it’s hard for them to grasp, ‘What does that really mean to me as a physician leader, as a physician, as a clinician?’ And I guess highlighting more of those success stories, the patient safety stories, the effective care stories that were really data driven, that were really driven and made possible because of their health IT system I think can help overcome some of that negative sentiment out there. I think we need more positivity around health IT and there has probably not been a lot of focus around how to make this topic more positive for people.”