It’s easy to get caught up in the immediate demands of your work. That report due on Friday that’s necessary for a big decision? It is a very pressing short-term need. But short-term thinking isn’t going to help your long-term struggles, so let’s take a step back and look at the bigger picture.
Get to the Source
When it comes to reducing data entry workloads, there are four main strategies to consider. Each of these approaches can significantly streamline your processes, but they require careful consideration and implementation.
- Consolidation: If you have two different systems that use the same data: replace them with one system. It’s not always a good idea. But sometimes we focus so much on the specialized features of apps or software that we don’t consider the duplicated data entry work they create.
- Templates: Always be on the lookout for features like this. The ability to select a template and have several values populate automatically is a wonderful thing. Usually, your system won’t refer to them as templates so they’re not always easy to find and usually complex systems like EHRs will have different abilities (and different names) in different areas. Sometimes you have to actually read the manual to discover these.
- Automate: This is usually the most expensive way to reduce collection workloads, so make sure what you’re considering is cost effective before you start heading down this path. And seriously consider hiring some technical talent.
- Reduce Collection: If you don’t really need it – don’t collect it! This method is free, makes everyone happy, and takes very little work to implement.
Which strategy is right will depend on your situation. The hardest part, though, is staying on course. It’s easy to end up going down long side paths of possibilities and new ideas. If you’re doing this right, you’ve already got a good idea of what your needs are and where you need to head. This is not the moment to start rewriting your plan.
Helping Front-line Staff
Front-line workers often don’t have the ability to determine if information is being used somewhere else in the organization, so they can’t reduce their work without help. Have them document how they enter the info that goes into a data flow or just go through some already entered records and see what’s consistently being entered.
Another way leaders can help their teams is by carefully avoiding a “one day we’ll be glad we have this” mentality. Healthcare is a very heavy data entry industry. Please don’t add any unnecessary work on the basis that someday it will be useful.
The last way to help out is just by taking a look at computer screens. It’s not uncommon to see data entry screen three times longer than they need to be because of options that are no longer needed or special fields that are only used for 5-10% of entries. Take a look in your software options to see if you can remove old options or move those special cases into their own category so their fields don’t show up on general pages. Make sure you know what will happen to the data already entered when you make these changes! This usually improves both the quality and speed of data entry.
Security Alert!
It’s tempting to use productivity tools in your browser to help with data entry. Generative AI, writing helpers, translation plugins, auto entry tools sound like a great idea, but if you work with patient data at all, these are quite often a violation of HIPAA! Turn off the automated helps unless you’ve been able to verify that the way you are using their service is acceptable under HIPAA.
Why Focus on This Now?
It might feel odd to start with reducing data work, but doing this before we start building sets us up for success in two ways:
- Data projects have boring parts… even data professionals think so. If you start out by focusing on the people who do the data entry, then you build up a lot of good will and “Go Team!” spirit. That will be helpful when you hit a boring phase.
- You’ll reduce the number of surprises (and the need to rework the plan!) by starting at the source of your data flow. I’ve lost count of the projects I worked on that were severely delayed, reworked, or even abandoned because no one talked to the front-line, first.
So take a good look at your map. Find all the data entry work that makes up the source of that flow. Then ask questions – don’t assume! – and start learning how the data that is essential to your chosen map gets entered.
And don’t feel frustrated or ashamed! Every organization struggles with data entry processes. But only great organizations try to do something about it.
Keep notes about what you learn here – even if your current system can’t solve the problem, this will be invaluable information for evaluating new systems in the future!
Related Resources to Explore
Common pitfalls of mapping processes for improvement Is this video dated? Yes. Is it short and relevant? Absolutely! In fact, if you’re having trouble figuring out how to get from map to process improvement, here’s another of his videos to help.
IBM’s explanation of Business Process Analysis includes mapping in their first step, then builds to automation.
Training on Power Automate: Cloud and Desktop can help automate a lot of admin tasks that don’t involve your EHR. To use the cloud version, you need to make sure your Microsoft tenant is secured.
