uPerform By ANCILE: Transforming how EMR training is conducted in healthcare

Research has shown an enterprise application’s success depends heavily on achieving rapid and effective user adoption and proficiency. Health systems utilizing highly complex IT systems, such as the electronic medical record (EMR) know this all too well. When clinicians struggle to use the EMR, frustration increases, time spent with patients decreases, and health systems delay realization of the full value of their software investment.

Traditional training methods can be costly and inefficient to maintain. So how do health systems successfully and cost-effectively prepare and guide clinicians through rollouts, upgrades, and procedural changes? Bobby Zarr shares his journey with uPerform – a comprehensive digital learning platform for mission-critical systems such as EMR, ERP, HCM and more.

As Manager of IT Training and Support at Infirmary Health, Zarr was tasked with putting together a training program for an EMR go-live. Zarr had only 60 days to complete the training, so he approached the EMR vendor for help. “When I reviewed the vendor-provided training materials, I realized they didn’t match our customized system and there’s no such thing as a one-size-fitsall training program or package of materials. I had to create and deploy training quickly, without physical resources, so eLearning was the only option,” recalls Zarr. Upon turning to uPerform for its rapid content creation, management, and delivery functionalities, Zarr successfully trained over 1,500 clinicians virtually, just in time for their EMR system go-live.

That was just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what uPerform was capable of, and Zarr was quick to realize its potential. He soon joined ANCILE—currently serving as the Senior Director of Healthcare at the company—to revolutionize IT training in healthcare through the use of uPerform, ANCILE’s flagship offering. “Over the last few years, we’ve partnered with hospitals to adapt uPerform to address the difficulties traditional instructorled training and ongoing support pose to healthcare systems – including high training costs, EMR utilization and compliance issues, and low clinician satisfaction,” adds Zarr.

uPerform is the only digital learning platform that combines content creation, management, and delivery capabilities in a single solution.

Its content creation tool empowers trainers to create and publish content in half the time traditional tools require. uPerform's single-source authoring enables trainers to publish help materials in many different formats, including written instructions, videos, and simulations. These formats offer learners a more sophisticated and intuitive way to consume training in the format they prefer. uPerform also boasts a robust content library, centralizing training and support content from various sources, guaranteeing help is found quickly. Ultimately, uPerform’s delivery engine, in tandem with application integrations, ensures all content reaches the relevant end-users instantly. Content is automatically filtered by group assignment, so it is relevant to their role, specialty, and context within the EMR. Access to help at the moment of need helps clinicians become better users of the software and increases satisfaction with the system.
An independent study quantified the time and cost savings clients achieved by leveraging uPerform for their complex software training – realizing a 45 percent reduction in time away from job for learners, a 50 percent reduction in time spent authoring and administering content; and a 40 percent reduction in the number of help desk calls per year.

uPerform clients found tremendous value in the platform during the COVID-19 pandemic. A large not-for-profit health system in Texas used uPerform in-application help and virtual training courses to effectively communicate policy changes and system updates to cross-train and support frontline workers, allowing them to flex quickly. Likewise, with the aid of uPerform, a large Children’s hospital in Pennsylvania created more than 40 eLearning courses and hundreds of workflow simulations in three months, meeting an aggressive rollout timeline.

ANCILE continues to enhance uPerform to better support health systems worldwide. It has plans to expand its footprint in the APAC region and add support for additional EMRs, including Cerner, Meditech, and others. Its new ‘Change Communication’ module will allow training administrators to send recommended training content to learners and track acknowledgement from within the uPerform platform.

Observing each of these milestones, it is safe to say that ANCILE’s uPerform is on the cutting edge of healthcare’s transformative shift to digital learning. uPerform’s comprehensive learning ecosystem supports education teams and users throughout entire software lifecycle, helping health systems drive user adoption and engagement, and in return, obtain a higher return on their technology investments.