What do you think the general reaction is from a crowd of medical professionals when your presentation is on… electronic medical records!?
After 8+ years of giving presentations on EMRs, I definitely know that I need to consider my audience, and be sensitive to how much medical providers (in general!) DETEST their EMRs here in the United States. I wanted the providers to see the simplicity of BackpackEMR while experiencing it for themselves – but my challenge was to get them motivated to try it out in the first place.
Queue up… CRAFTING! I decided to dedicate some time to finding generally-loved famous people, printing out full-sized headshots, cutting them out, laminating them, and putting them “on a stick”!
I also included names, demographics, history, and complaints on the back to help attendees focus on the EMR and charting, rather than coming up with their own information to enter.
I’m not sure if the heads helped, but I was surprised at how eager many providers were to jump on the iPads and enter a few patient details.
This workshop was fun for me, too, because I was able to highlight the real reasons for implementing an EMR during mobile clinics:
1. Improve patient outcomes with access to patients’ medical histories, providing true continuity of care
2. Provide real impact metrics to donors and staff, not just #’s of patients seen
3. Better serve communities with data on treatment efficacy and education opportunities
If you’re looking for a fun way to introduce your staff to an EMR, consider making some props to help ease them into a new way of documenting their patients’ health data. After using the system and seeing the benefits, they will absolutely embrace the change.
