Healthcare technology advances seemingly every day, improving critical functions like patient care, clinical workflows, and organizational efficiency. But as organizations implement these new solutions, they’re often met with resistance from those who rely on them the most—providers.
Without proper management, even the most promising innovations can become burdensome, triggering clinician burnout, dissatisfaction, and workflow disruptions. In our recent healthcare tech adoption webinar, a panel of experts shared valuable insights on how to improve technology investments and ensure smooth, long-term implementation success.
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Change management in healthcare: Practical strategies for seamless tech adoption
Short on time? Read on for seven actionable strategies that will help your organization introduce new healthcare technology in 2025 and beyond.
1. Communicate the ‘why’
Understandably, many clinicians are skeptical of change, especially when they don’t understand the benefits. Whether it’s improving risk scores or reducing the clinical documentation burden, clearly articulating the purpose of a new tool will go a long way in garnering acceptance for it.
“I think telling the providers the ‘why’ behind it is going to make a huge difference in implementation and acceptance,” said Kelly Thorson, NP, a Clinical Informatics provider at Concord Hospital. “If you’re just doing it to do it, they will never accept it,”
Joanne Bousquet, an Application Analyst and Thorson’s colleague added, “The ‘why’ is great, but also… you gotta couple the ‘Why are we doing it?’ with the ‘What’s in it for me?’ so you can get that sort of buy in.”
Tip: Before rolling out any new tool, provide clear and compelling reasons as to how and why it will help providers and improve patient care.
2. Repeat, reiterate, and remind
When it comes to healthcare IT adoption, a single email announcement isn’t going to cut it. Neither is two for that matter, or even three. Instead, use multiple communication channels to reinforce the message and reach the greatest number of people.
“We had a physician years ago who used to say, ‘Communicate everything six different ways, and you’ll still have half your staff say they never saw it’—and he was not wrong,” said Samuel Ross, MD, Medical Director of Informatics at Fisher-Titus.
Tip: Repetition is key. Ensure you’re sending updates consistently and through various touchpoints.
3. Be flexible with timelines
If a tech implementation isn’t ready for real-world use, don’t force it. Doing so could cause unnecessary frustration and push back among physicians. At the end of the day, a well-timed release will drive better adoption.
“Don’t jump the gun on going live… if you set a date to go live and you’re not ready, you have to be willing to push it,” said Bousquet. “We knew when we first planned on rolling [our implementation] out it was going to fail miserably because it wasn’t at a place that we felt our providers would accept it, so we stopped in our tracks.”
Tip: Think about back-up plans and be willing to adjust timelines before launching innovative technology to ensure provider readiness.
4. Measure what matters
Tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) for a healthcare IT rollout is crucial—but they should remain malleable. Sometimes, a tool proves most valuable for an unexpected purpose or department, requiring organizations to shift how they measure success.
“I actually reassess our KPIs on a very frequent basis,” said Ross. “That was one of the things we had to do with [IMO Health’s technology]… we went in thinking this was going to be a provider metric; now we use it more for our CDI nurses and their communication back to our providers—[the nurses are] the ones that took IMO Health and ran with it.”
Tip: Set clear, measurable goals, but stay open to adjusting them based on real-life usage data.
5. Phase your rollout
Instead of launching a novel tool across an entire health system at once and overwhelming providers, consider staggering your implementation. This will enable you to provide stronger support and troubleshoot concerns more effectively.
“We usually try to do a very supportive rollout,” said Thorson. “We always sit down and decide, ‘Do we want to do this as a big bang?’… or ‘Do we have to do it as a slow rolling rollout?’… We did that with IMO Health because we wanted to make sure people understood how it was going to be used.”
Tip: Start small with tech implementations and expand slowly to reduce risk and increase proper usage.
6. Select vendors carefully
Choosing a vendor that listens to feedback and works with you to overcome challenges and ensure you’re getting optimal value from your tech is essential. A good vendor should also be adaptable and willing to evolve as you do.
“[A vendor] can make or break your product,” said Ross. “I think we’ve been with IMO Health for almost three years now, and that’s the one thing I do love is that we get to talk with them, and we get to ask them questions, and that is very rare… very rare.”
Tip: Before settling on a vendor, evaluate their customer support responsiveness and determine whether their solutions meet varying tech adoption levels.
7. Give clinicians more control
Many clinicians feel overwhelmed by current EHRs (electronic health records), forced to navigate complex medical coding systems while simultaneously tending to patients. Offering these providers a solution with flexibility and the opportunity to provide feedback may increase engagement.
“In this day and age, providers feel so out of control,” said Ross. “When I’m able to say, ‘Hey, this is something you can control,’ they usually buy in pretty quickly.”
Tip: Integrate technology solutions that give clinicians workflow flexibility and customization options—and provide ongoing support to ease the transition.
