Educational Intervention to Increase Physician Satisfaction and Effectiveness With a New Electronic Health Record

The Reading Hospital and Medical Center

Status: Completed

Conditions: Attitude of Health Personnel

Treatments: Other: One-on-one physician training; Other: Usual training

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT02015702

ReadingHMC-IRB-045-12

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study was intended to test the effects of adding a one-on-one educational intervention taught by a physician to a physician during their clinical work to improve their acceptance and satisfaction with a new inpatient electronic health record and ordering system.

Full description

This study was a randomized, parallel , non- blinded controlled trial of real-time, focused educational interventions in an intervention arm compared with usual training and support in the control arm. Improvement in performance, defined as the time between opening and closing a progress note, and number of notes completed after shift , were the primary outcomes. Physician satisfaction was a secondary outcome. Participants from one 550-bed Academic Independent Medical Center were invited to participate if they were full-time hospitalists or residents in internal medicine with no prior experience with the EPIC electronic health record.

Enrollment: 44 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 25 to 65 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Internal Medicine physicians and resident physicians with inpatient clinical duties at the time of the EPIC electronic health record go-live (Feb 4, 2013)

Exclusion criteria

• Physicians whose duties did not include regular admissions and discharge of patients
• Physicians whose work was limited to teaching
• Physicians with prior experience in using EPIC systems for inpatient care .
• Physician assistants and nurse practitioners

Trial design

Primary purpose: Other

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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44 participants in 2 patient groups

One-on-one physician training

Experimental group

Description:

One-on-one physician training Physicians in the experimental arm were visited by a instructing physician at a computer while performing clinical duties who had observed others to identify best practices. Instructors watched subjects' work, looking for a specific tip that could be applied to the current work, then demonstrated the tip, and answered any questions the subject had about using or applying this new technique .

Treatment:

Other: Usual training

Other: One-on-one physician training

Usual training

Active Comparator group

Description:

Usual training. This group will get the usual specified training for learning to use our electronic health record. Both groups received 12 hours of EPIC classroom training, exposure to the EPIC e-learning modules, user acceptability testing classes, and unlimited time on the EPIC 'playground', a site to practice on virtual patients. All had 90 days of elbow support with an EPIC-training non-physician technician, who were visible and available on all inpatient wards, as well as access to a physician-only support line available at all hours.

Treatment:

Other: Usual training