I’m sure that many of my readers have experienced the awkwardness of an error happening during the demo or training of an EMR system. I’ve been on both sides of the fence (watching or doing a demo) and let’s just say it’s really uncomfortable for both sides. Those that have experienced it know that the most common explanation for the error is “This is the demo system and so we haven’t finished setting everything up.” Or in the case of the training system, “This is the training system and so with all of the people training on this system it has some errors from those training on it.”

In some cases, this is completely true. When I’m training my staff for an update to our EMR software, there has been a number of occasions where I was just too lazy to set something up on our test database and it doesn’t work quite right. So, it does happen.

The difference between myself (most of the time) and those demoing and training you on an EMR system is that I’ll make note of the problem and make sure that indeed it was something I could easily fix. If I can’t, then I escalate it to our EMR vendor for resolution before we proceed with the upgrade. Those showing you the demo or training you might do the same. However, if you’re training on the system, there’s little chance the fixes they request will be implemented before you implement the system.

Even more to the point is that far too often it’s not something to do with the test or demo system, but is often an error in the program itself. It’s a good idea to evaluate the error you saw. This can be a real challenge since the trainer is often going to blow by the error as quickly as possible. However, don’t be afraid to call them out on the error. This is going to be the heart of your practice. Make sure you really know if those errors were temporary or chronic. Nothing’s more of a pain than regular errors from your EMR software.

I’ve just begun my series listing the benefits of an EMR in a clinical practice, but today I was kind of struck by a post over on the TempDev blog. The post is called “Would You Go Back to Paper?” The following section of an email they received is what struck me most:

I cannot begin to tell you how the loss of EMRs has adversely impacted our work. Please keep up the good work with helping people implement EMRs.

Sincerely,
A Midwest RN

They also have a poll on their post which should hopefully turn up some interesting results. However, this comment from A Midwest RN really made me think about what it would be like to leave an EMR and return to the paper world. I’ve quite often suggested that if the clinic I work for full time chose to move to another EMR, I’d just leave first. I expect if they chose to go back to paper, I’d do the same. Luckily, I don’t think either of those things are even in the dark recesses of the mind.

I must admit it’s really hard for me to imagine our clinic without EMR. It’s such an integral part of how we operate that I can only imagine the struggles we’d have to go back. Sure makes me think about all the complaining that happened during the EMR implementation process. I’m guessing the complaining that would occur if we went back to paper charting would be even worse.

Nice to take a second to look at EMR implementation from a different angle.