Assignment: EMR Implementation: Managing Change

While the EMR will impact departments outside of HIM, it will also impact staffing in the HIM department. From your reading about EMR implementation, you realize that the EMR will drastically change tasks in the HIM department. Your department's clerical area is most affected; paper sorting and chart assembly will be almost eliminated by the EMR, and chart analysis, which used to be done with paper records, will be done on the computer. Currently, 10 full time employees (FTEs) handle these tasks; not everyone is computer-savvy. The Director wants you to prepare the department for changes ahead. She asks you to report to her next week about how you will present this at the next staff meeting.

Change is difficult, especially when someone's job may change or be eliminated. Research change management strategies and in a two-page paper, using APA format, discuss:

• How a manager can present change, when change is not necessarily positive.
• What new skills must be learned with the new system? Who should be trained in the new tasks? Who should train them?
• If the FTE load must be reduced to 8 FTEs with the new system, how do you recommend going about this?