Professionals who do the same job for years or decades fall into a routine and any disruption to that routine can feel threatening. Those who are in favor of new technologies will say the disruption is a good thing – it can save time, reduce costs, or improve quality. Those who are skeptical of new technologies feel that disruption is a risk to what is already working just fine. Not surprisingly, when new digital health technologies are introduced to physicians, the technology is often faced with resistance. Digital health can mean a vast array of technologies including telemedicine, remote monitoring, home monitoring, wearable devices, and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions. Below, we’ll examine a few suggestions on how you can appeal to change resistant physicians when rolling out these new technologies.
Have a trusted clinician lead new technology initiatives
Ensure new technology projects are championed by a clinician or physician and not the IT department. In addition, make sure you are getting the right clinical champion for the role. If you are introducing a new AI tool to optimize surgery scheduling utilization, get the head of a surgical specialty to lead the initiative. If you are setting up remote monitoring for the ICU, have a long-time ICU nurse or physician be an advocate for the change. This person should have a high level of trust from their peers and feel comfortable speaking directly to others who may be resistant to the change. Lastly, ensure this person is excited about the technology and they can speak personally and passionately about why they want this new tool. Physicians are more likely to accept a new technology when they see someone advocating for the tool who can relate to their priorities and concerns.
Market your why, not your what
Instinctively we like to tell people what a product does and how it works. However, as Simon Sinek describes in a famous TEDTalk, you need to start with the why to capture people’s attention. Why is your organization implementing this new technology? In this case, say you are implementing a clinical decision support tool intended to suggest care plans and reduce overused tests, drugs, or invasive procedures. Immediately, you may say your reason to implement this tool is because it will save $X million over the first 5 years. Although financial savings may be an effective sales tool for the board of directors, it is not an effective sales tool for physicians. What is in your core values that is driving you to adopt this product? When introducing the clinical decision support tool to staff, start with the why. “We strongly believe in the importance of a personalized physician-patient relationship. This tool will help you spend less time searching through data points and ordering unnecessary tests so you can individualize the patient’s care path.” Appealing to the core values of why physicians do what they do will help them feel more comfortable using a technology.
Be data driven with your approach
After you explain your why, use data because some skeptics will need proof. They will ask questions like: How do you know this will not increase my workload? How do you know this isn’t another overhyped technology and it will not actually work? How do you know this will improve patient outcomes? Implementing consumer driven digital health technologies such as online scheduling or online patient messaging is rife with these concerns from physicians. Physicians worry that patients will misuse the technology and the expense will be more hassle for the physician or their staff…for no additional pay. Be prepared to address these widespread concerns with data. I worked for a patient portal vendor and they had material with abundant data which could bust common myths about patient portals. We aggregated data from each client and would share information to help reduce fears such as ‘introducing online patient messaging reduced the time clinic staff spent on the phone or answering online messages by 23%’. Survey your physicians to figure out what their largest concerns are related to the new digital health technology and then work with the vendor and use data to ‘bust the myths’.
Take a hands-on approach
Here is where everyone screams training: training is key to adoption! While I agree that training is key to adoption, there are different training methodologies for different levels of comfort with technology. For those who are advocates of new technology, all they may need is a quick online training video and they’re ready to dive in. For the physicians who are resistant to new technology, a more hands-on training approach is required. It can be scary to use a new technology for the first time. How do you start? Am I going to click the wrong button and break everything? Figure out who your more change-resistant physicians are and send the clinical champion to see them prior to the activation of the new technology to hear their concerns. Let them play with a test version of the product to get comfortable with it. The more personal and hands-on exposure physicians have had with the product prior to using it in real clinical practice, to more open they’ll be to the change.
Be compassionate
You, as a leader in the organization, are passionate about new technology but be mindful that not everyone feels the same way. In fact, many feel the opposite. New technology, as discussed before, can be scary or feel like a threat to the way you practice medicine. Know who the physicians are at your organization that may feel this way and be compassionate towards these feelings. Give them extra attention to help to alleviate their concerns or get them comfortable with the upcoming change. Naturally there will always be a subset of people that will never embrace technology changes, but do what you can to compassionately convert the middle-of-the-road skeptics into believers.
Hopefully with these 5 simple tips you are better equipped to combat physician resistance and see more widespread adoption with your next digital health implementation.
