EHR training could ease physician turnover, Klas report finds

Article By: Brian T. Horowitz

Blog Source From : https://www.healthcaredive.com/

Dive Brief:

• In a survey of physicians who left their jobs, 67% said they want more training in electronic health records, according to the Klas Arch Collaborative white paper “Understanding Your Risk for Physician Turnover.” Klas Arch Collaborative is a group of healthcare organizations dedicated to improving EHR workflows.
• Of physicians who left their organization, 56% had previously said they were “very likely” to leave compared with 8% who said they were “very unlikely” to leave. By presenting this data, Klas suggested healthcare organizations should be ready to make changes based on physican-reported plans to leave and use that information to determine if their efforts are working.
• Since 2019, 54 physicians changed their mind about leaving their jobs within the following two years, the study found. Physicians who changed their minds about leaving reported less after-hours work and a less chaotic environment that had contributed to burnout.

Dive Insight:

The Klas white paper shows how clinician turnover is an ongoing problem in healthcare and the role that EHRs play. For the white paper, Klas studied data from more than 200 physicians across three organizations as well as 54 physicians from collaborative organizations who decided stay in their jobs after planning to leave

In fact, physicians who said they were “very likely” to leave their jobs were 15 times more likely to leave compared with those who reported they were “very unlikely” to leave. Along with valuing EHR training, physicians cited improvements in chaotic work environments as factors impacting their decisions to stay. In the study, physicians who changed their minds were 17% more likely to agree that EHRs enabling patient safety, 15% more likely to agree that EHR alerts prevent mistakes and 13% more likely to agree that EHRs can enable patient-centered care.

Klas detailed steps healthcare organizations can take to improve their workflows using EHRs, which could help curb physician turnover. For example, to improve a chaotic work environment, Bellin Health in Wisconsin built schedules for when to test and train for EHR upgrades to ease the clinician workflow.

In addition, EHRs can pull data for generating reports on chart-closure rates. The data could help resolve backlogs and reduce after-hours charting, KLAS suggested. Another way to improve EHR efficiency is to increase use of macros to personalize EHRs according to physicians’ needs, according to Klas.

“Highly satisfied providers most commonly cite use of personalization tools as the reason for their success with the EHR,” the report stated. “It is important to tailor EHR personalization to providers’ needs because doing so can enhance providers’ overall experience by making the system feel reliable and efficient.”

With the additional EHR training, health systems may be able to reverse the trend of physician turnover, according to Klas.

“This highlights the broad importance of enabling physicians to acquire necessary skills and knowledge to effectively navigate EHR systems,” the report stated.