- Getting end users onboarded with new technology isn’t easy, but in healthcare environments, it’s essential for ensuring good patient care.
- Identifying power users in your health system can help streamline adoption throughout each department.
- Always source feedback from your end users during adoption and optimization to get the temperature on how adoption is progressing.
Different platforms come with their own unique implementation, on-boarding, and optimization concerns. You’ll have to guide personnel through the adoption process and ensure they use the new software. But how do you get started?
Healthcare Unified Communications Adoption Tips
To jump start your efforts, here are some valuable tips for increasing adoption of unified communications in healthcare settings:
Power Up
Different people have different abilities and, let’s be honest, different levels of interest when it comes to learning new technology. A select few will naturally take to the new software and will project a sense of excitement that gets their colleagues excited as well. These power users can become your most valuable asset. Identify and cultivate them in each of the various stakeholder groups you’re working with.
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Once you’ve identified your power users, inspire them to evangelize the product within their team. Offer incentives and rewards for early adopters who get their colleagues on board. Those rewards can include everything from a simple “thank you!” to gift cards to extra PTO days.
Get Feedback
Successful optimization doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Throughout the launch, ask for user feedback and incorporate your findings into adjustments to the software.
Healthcare staff often cite incompatibility with workflows and procedures as a reason for not using a unified communications tool. This could be a signal that the tool isn’t the right fit for the organization in terms of its feature set and capabilities. Yet, it might also mean that simple changes have to be made that will transform the user experience and increase overall adoption.
When new software is introduced, initial resistance can be strong. Finding the tipping point where unified communications will complement—maybe even streamline—existing workflows will expand adoption. None of that can be discovered without getting end-user feedback, though.
Integrate
Integration is an essential part of successful software adoption. When end users have to login to a unified communications platform that’s separate from where the rest of their work happens, adoption rates are going to suffer.
Healthcare organizations need to make sure their unified communications tools are integrated with the systems end users already rely on. Thankfully, time-tested unified communications platforms like the Cisco Healthcare Intelligent Contact Center connect with a range of platforms that your clinicians, RCM staff, and other admins use every day.
Partner with an MSP
Having a managed services partner to guide your launch is valuable, especially as part of larger healthcare unified communications software implementations. Managed IT service providers can lead new software launches on both technical and personnel fronts.
One-on-one training and instruction with experts makes understanding and using new technology easier. This level of personal work gets end users off on the right foot.
Achieving strong adoption rates on new software isn’t easy, but the benefits outweigh the costs. Unified communications solutions are designed to make collaboration between teams easier, not more difficult. When you get your teams on board, that technology can do its job.
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