Hospitals need to take into account each particular physician and tailor their approach to moving the physician to an electronic health record system, according to Daniel Morreale, vice president and CIO at Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center in New York City.
Morreale, in an interview with EHRIntelligence.com, noted that he uses four different methods to spur physician EHR adoption, depending on the situation, which he "whimsically" calls the Catherine de Medici Approach: compulsion, persuasion, obsequiousness and extortion, or "CPOE."
He also noted that the doctors who require extortion are fewer than they used to be, and those younger physicians are more amenable to using EHRs, falling into the "compulsion" category.
Morreale recommended that hospitals manage physicians' expectations of the EHRs and include physicians in the design and definition of workflow.
"It's finding what's valuable for them and understanding that I'm asking them to change and I'm willing to give them something that makes it a little easier," he said.
It can be an uphill battle to get physicians to embrace EHRs. Although more physicians than ever are adopting EHRs, not all of them are reaping a positive return on the investment. What's more, providers' level of dissatisfaction with their systems is increasing, despite--or perhaps because of--the increased numbers of physicians being compelled to use them.
To learn more:
- read the interview