How Epic Is Working with the Arch Collaborative - Arch Summit 2021
With the ongoing pandemic, clinician burnout is more real than ever. And EHR satisfaction can be a strong contributing factor in making or breaking clinician well-being. The good news is that health systems have more control over the job fulfillment of their clinicians than they may realize. That is why KLAS created the Arch Collaborative, an initiative dedicated to helping provider organizations increase EHR satisfaction.
Epic’s History with the Arch Collaborative
Last month at our Arch Collaborative 2021 summit, Epic’s own Joshua Holzbauer and Jana Jansen spoke of their collaborative efforts with their customers and KLAS to improve clinician well-being through improved EHR satisfaction. Over 100 Epic users attended both in person and virtually.
The presenters gave us a short history of Epic’s work with the Arch Collaborative, which started in 2017. Epic has done their own research on EHR satisfaction and compared it to KLAS’ research. Josh remarked how similar the data has been for both Epic and KLAS. Epic’s work with KLAS has helped them learn the prime importance of personalization, shared governance, and training.
A Focus on Clinician Engagement
The presenters said that rather than running the gamut of what Epic is doing to improve provider satisfaction, they wanted to zero in on just one thing: clinician engagement.
For the last couple of years, Epic has ramped up their efforts to meet providers where they live. They have set up booths at physician conferences, and in between sessions, they directly engage with providers about their questions and concerns with the Epic system. They listen to provider feedback and offer tips and tricks and even personalized training techniques.
For many years, Epic has implemented an incentive program they call Honor Roll. Customers who meet certain criteria qualify for discounts, rewards, and perks. One of Epic’s current criteria is for organizations to survey their clinicians on their EHR satisfaction.
Epic is working on empowering users to personalize their programs directly from the system interface. The vendor is implementing a lightbulb icon in the taskbar of each module that users can click on to submit their ideas.
Epic has also created a website called Epic Earth, which enables users to submit their ideas and collaborate with other users to solve problems and enhance their programs. Epic Earth has been around for years, but the level of user engagement has definitely been going up. Epic hosts training webinars called Efficiency Hour. Soon, Epic will be moving their sign-ups for those webinars to Epic Earth in the hopes that they can reach even more users.
Helping Nurses Too
Within the last couple of years, Epic has been focusing specifically on combatting nurse burnout. Their Nursing Efficiency Assessment Tool helps Epic benchmark the time that nurses spend in the system. Epic is also working on targeting specific tools to engage nurse managers and nurses. For example, Nurse Ace is an advanced training module that is designed to offer bite-sized trainings that nurses can complete during their busy shifts. Epic hosts quarterly webinars for nurses that include principles like governance, training, and engagement.
The presentation ended with a Q&A session, in which many eager participants engaged with the presenters to get more details on how they can use the tools Epic offers to improve EHR satisfaction and clinician well-being. The presentation was a success, and we are very grateful to all who participated.
Want to listen to other sessions and learnings from the Arch Collaborative Learning Summit 2021? Check out the Arch Learning Track - 2021 Arch Collaborative Summit.
Photo credit: NINENII, Adobe Stock