Unique Presentation Identifier:
V03
Program Type
Graduate
Faculty Advisor
Dr. Shelly Randall
Document Type
Poster
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Location
Online
Start Date
29-4-2025 8:00 AM
Abstract
Healthcare providers rely on an electronic medical record (EMR) to provide comprehensive documentation of a patient’s health history, a method for documenting their care, and as an avenue to give the next steps in patient care. Therefore, any changes in how an EMR functions can become a hindrance to clinicians in providing accurate patient care. As EMR development teams, specifically analysts, prepare software changes, they must decide on the appropriate method for communicating these changes with various healthcare clinicians. The purpose of this project is to standardize the process for analysts to effectively communicate outpatient EMR software changes to key stakeholders based on their preferred style of communication. This quality improvement project was completed in an outpatient pediatric clinic. The project methods included a survey to identify communication preferences from key stakeholders, the creation of a flowchart with documentation for analysts to develop communication standards, and a post-survey to evaluate the effectiveness of the communication process. The results indicated that by establishing a standardized communication process, the EMR changes were easy to follow and distribute to other clinicians. A review of the literature showed that knowing your audience, learning their communication preferences, and following through with those preferences are impactful to successful communication, education, and customer satisfaction. Effective communication that is clear and easy to distribute allows for increased confidence in using an EMR system. Increased confidence allows healthcare clinicians to focus on the patient first and technology last.
Recommended Citation
Brady, Heather, "Effective Communication as Preferred by Providers" (2025). ATU Student Research Symposium. 2.
https://orc.library.atu.edu/atu_rs/2025/2025/2
Effective Communication as Preferred by Providers
Online
Healthcare providers rely on an electronic medical record (EMR) to provide comprehensive documentation of a patient’s health history, a method for documenting their care, and as an avenue to give the next steps in patient care. Therefore, any changes in how an EMR functions can become a hindrance to clinicians in providing accurate patient care. As EMR development teams, specifically analysts, prepare software changes, they must decide on the appropriate method for communicating these changes with various healthcare clinicians. The purpose of this project is to standardize the process for analysts to effectively communicate outpatient EMR software changes to key stakeholders based on their preferred style of communication. This quality improvement project was completed in an outpatient pediatric clinic. The project methods included a survey to identify communication preferences from key stakeholders, the creation of a flowchart with documentation for analysts to develop communication standards, and a post-survey to evaluate the effectiveness of the communication process. The results indicated that by establishing a standardized communication process, the EMR changes were easy to follow and distribute to other clinicians. A review of the literature showed that knowing your audience, learning their communication preferences, and following through with those preferences are impactful to successful communication, education, and customer satisfaction. Effective communication that is clear and easy to distribute allows for increased confidence in using an EMR system. Increased confidence allows healthcare clinicians to focus on the patient first and technology last.