Why NUH Colleagues Should Complete the National EPR Survey Today
I want our staff’s voice to be heard — complete the national EPR survey today and make our clinical systems stronger for the future.
I’d love NUH staff who use the Trust’s Electronic Patient Record (EPR) systems to share their experiences in a new user survey. Usability is central to the Trust’s digital improvement plans and colleagues can shape this work by sharing your experiences.
Last month, NHS England launched a new national electronic patient record (EPR) usability survey. Staff in every Trust in the country are being asked to take part to gather information on how well our clinical IT systems support our staff and patients and understand what we can do improve them.
Now, for those of us whose hearts sink at the prospect of completing yet another NHS survey, here’s a little story…
Last year, we introduced our new Electronic Prescribing and Medication Administration (EPMA) system across NUH. On rollout day, I went down to the wards and asked a nurse how she felt about the new system.
“I’m worried,” she said. “We’ve only had a 50-minute video to understand it. I think it’s going to be complicated and a nuisance to learn.”
Later that afternoon, I returned to check in with her — how was she feeling now? “It was fine,” she said. “I got the hang of it quickly. I was worried for nothing.”
As it transpires, this wasn’t an isolated experience during the deployment. In fact, we eventually stood down our technical floor walkers several days earlier than planned because staff didn’t need their support.
The importance of usability
This is a simple illustration of why usability is essential in clinical IT.
Every new implementation carries a degree of risk:
- that it may not deliver the expected benefits
- that it may temporarily confuse or disrupt staff’s working practices
- that it may even make people’s experience worse rather than better.
Yet when colleagues know what they’re trying to achieve and the system makes it easy to get it done then the risks are smaller and the process of adapting to change becomes much more straightforward.
Less stress.
Minimal disruption.
Seamless transition.
Addressing the frustrations
Unfortunately, that’s not the reality our colleagues face when using many of our clinical systems, as reflected in the many frustrations I hear about.
These include:
- the clinicians who use eleven separate applications to run their outpatient clinic effectively
- the doctor who spends two hours before every clinic extracting relevant information from the clinical systems.
- another colleague who has had to limit patient numbers because of the time taken to process and record information.
This simply isn’t good enough for our people or the patients they support. Technology is nothing if it doesn’t help staff do their jobs more safely, efficiently and effectively. Moreover, there’s strong evidence that clinical systems with low user satisfaction scores are associated with poorer clinical safety outcomes, reduced productivity and increased burnout.In other words, if we don’t get usability right, we risk harming ourselves, our patients and our organisation.
So how do we do better?
Putting users at the heart of decision-making
Firstly, as we move to consolidate more of our systems onto a single platform within NerveCentre, it’s crucial that the usability dimension is properly respected. This starts with ensuring that our users — those who grapple with these systems everyday — are fully involved in shaping key decisions.
We’re doing this in lots of different ways, including ongoing dialogue with clinical teams and formal reference groups to embed clinical input into our EPR programme plans.
But although we gather feedback from various sources, we still need a more systematic way of measuring and tracking how all users feel about the clinical IT they use.
That’s where the national EPR usability survey comes in.
It’s a chance for us to understand:
- where we currently stand on user experience
- where we need to address critical pain points, and
- where we can build on things that are working well.
It’s modelled on a consistent set of questions developed by international research firm KLAS Research, the survey also allows us to compare and benchmark our usability scores with peer organisations — creating deeper opportunities to learn and apply good practice.
Make sure you have your say
So, look, I know there have been lots of demands for your feedback recently, and I understand the risk of ‘survey fatigue’.
But I’d urge every clinician and clinical support professional who uses an EPR to find time to complete this one. It takes less than 10 minutes to do and will help us shape our EPR improvement plans in a way that’s truly centred on user needs.
I’m particularly keen to have this information to help drive the conversations with NerveCentre and other suppliers as we move forward with integration — and I’m assured that NHS England will be providing similar challenge to other commercial vendors at a national level.
We hear many things about the systems we have across NUH, but this survey gives us the opportunity to collect data in a methodical way, including understanding the experiences in other trusts using the same platforms across the East Midlands.
And your feedback is the key to this.
Whether it’s about NerveCentre, System C or any other system, and whether your experience is good, bad or indifferent, we need to hear it.
So please share your views, tell us what works and what doesn’t, and help us pinpoint where improvements are most urgently needed so we can make our systems work better for everyone.
The national EPR usability survey is open to all clinicians and clinical support professionals who use an EPR system in their work. It runs until Friday 20 December.
To take part, click here.
