How to Prepare your Team for a new Practice Management Software

Implementing a Practice Management Software for your Healthcare Business? Here’s a list of Everything you need to do to Prepare your Team!

With the onset of advanced technology and modern medicine, healthcare providers are making changes and adapting to the use of new technologies and smart intuitive systems with advanced AI capabilities. Most healthcare providers are now successfully using a practice management software for enhancing the patient care experience and increasing the overall productivity as well.

While implementing a practice management software for your healthcare business for the first time might pose daunting challenges, it is very important that you keep your team in the loop during the implementation process and prepare them for the adoption of the new system accordingly.

Things to Review with your Team

When you’re first introducing the new technology to your team, there are a lot of things that you need to review with your team so that everyone is on the same page with regards to the new software. You will surely be coming across different kinds of reactions from your team and hence it is important that you’re fully prepared while discussing and reviewing the new technology with your team.

You’ll have to review the following parameters with your team:

1. Discuss Benefits: The first step is to discuss benefits. You have been interacting with your vendor for quite some time now and are fully aware of all the capabilities and benefits. It is really important that your team is equally aware of the benefits.

2. Talk about the changes: It is important that you discuss the upcoming changes with your team and make them fully aware of the technology. Not everyone would be comfortable with technology, and you would not want to disrupt their set ways. By talking about the changes and the effects on the daily operations – you will be able to bring everyone on the same page.

3. High-level Implementation Details: You need to sit with your team and make sure that they understand how the implementation would work and the work areas that would be affected. It is very important that they understand that the new technology is in no way replacing them or their jobs and will only be used to make their jobs easier.

4. Training Process: As discussed above, not everyone would be comfortable with technology in general and would want to stick to their set ways. Bringing in a new technology for the first time is indeed a massive change and you have to be upfront in explaining that the training process will be comprehensive and that there will be ample time, resources and support throughout. In addition to the training that you plan on your end, you can seek appropriate support from your software vendor as well.

Build the Hype

Implementing a practice management software is indeed a huge step and as daunting as it might be, it is pretty exciting as well. As pumped up as you are about the new technology, it is important that your team shares your excitement as well. If you’re at the forefront of the implementation process, the responsibility of building the hype about the new technology largely rests on your shoulders.

You can make use of the following strategies to infuse excitement in your team:

1. Explain all the granular details of the new software. When your team clearly understands everything about the new technology, they will feel more confident and hence will be excited about the software as well.
2. Talk about the benefits in details right from Day 1. Talk about efficiency and how the new capabilities will help in saving time.
3. Discuss how the new software will help in enhancing the overall patient care process. When your team understands that the new technology will help them in providing better care to their patients, they are bound to get all pumped up.
4. Be open to answering all kind of questions. Make sure that you are prepared to answer all kinds of questions as they come. Keeping everything documented helps a lot in providing clarity.
5. Help your team in getting rid of any fears related to the new technology. This can be done by talking about the ease of use of the new system and having interactive training sessions

Be Prepared for Questions

While you’re leading the implementation, you will be frequently facing a lot of questions from your team. It is really important that you address all the questions and concerns on an ongoing basis. The most crucial point would be when your team would want to know the reason for the technological shift. They might want to know if there was something wrong with the set ways in which they have been doing things for so many years. They would have questions around benefits, ease of use, training and support. It is really important that they fully understand that the new system is majorly for their benefit.

You have to be prepared for all kinds of questions related to the technological shift so that you don’t have to worry about being caught off guard. When you provide clear and concise answers, it becomes really easy to have everyone on the same page.

Be Prepared to Address Team Resistance

It is possible that you’re concerned about resistance from some of your team members. Resistance is pretty normal in technological shifts of this scale. In such a situation, you would have to do certain things to ensure that everything goes smooth, and everyone is on the same page.

The most important thing that you can do is discuss benefits and talk about the ways in which the new system would improve efficiency. You will have to be prepared for addressing all kinds of questions and complains as they come your way. A lot of resistance can be overcome by proper training and a well-planned system adoption process.

When you’re fully prepared to support your team during the course of system adoption, it would be easier to overcome any kind of resistance.

At Elixir, we understand that proper training and a well-planned system adoption process is crucial while implementing a practice management software. The Elixir application in itself is highly intuitive which makes it very user friendly and easy to use. We have thousands of hours of experience in training end users in the healthcare space and helping them adapt to custom built practice management solutions.

Elixir Practice Management Suite is a comprehensive solution which streamlines all the phases of the patient care process and helps in increasing the overall productivity for healthcare providers. Want to see how Elixir is the right fit for your organization? We can help you take a test drive today!