Electronic Health Records Training: Q&A With Christine Reyes

The ATD Talent Development and Training in Healthcare Handbook (ATD Press, November 2021) addresses the many opportunities and challenges TD professionals face in the growing and rapidly changing healthcare space. Effective talent development is the thread that weaves through an entire healthcare organization to ensure it is up to standard with the latest practices in treating patients while providing a safe and engaging environment for staff. TD professionals have the unique role of tying together organizational and employee advancement in healthcare systems—and likewise, this handbook dives into areas for both business and professional evolution.

Written by 25 fellow healthcare practitioners with extensive experience in the field—from nurses, physicians, and administrators to instructional designers, chief learning officers, technology experts, and leaders across the industry, it covers six key themes across 26 chapters:

• Learning and Development Basics
• Organization Development
• Employee Development
• Business Acumen for the Health System
• Digital Transformation and Literacy
• Patient-Centric Care

Christine (Chris) Reyes, director of Dimensions Acute Training with Novant Health, is the author of a chapter focused on electronic health records in the ATD Talent Development and Training in Healthcare Handbook. In this spotlight Q&A, learn more about Reyes and her contribution to the book.

How have your experiences in healthcare technology shaped the best practices you shared?

With more than 25 years of healthcare experience, I’ve had the opportunity to serve in various roles that depend on strong collaboration and communication across the organization. Understanding how each department affects another and how seemingly simple system or process changes can impact others is vital to sound solutions and transformational change.

At a previous job of mine, we often hosted other organizations on site visits to share our best practices and learning experiences. I found so much value and growth in sharing knowledge and learning from others. In the Electronic Healthcare Record (EHR) chapter, I tried to share topics that have been instrumental to the success of our training program as well as those questions that are the most often asked by other organizations and learning healthcare professionals related to EHR training.

How do you foresee the advancement of talent development for EHR implementation and usage within healthcare? For example, in an ideal world, how do you see this area flourishing for employee or organization development?

With the pace of change in both technology and healthcare, I think it is essential for learning to take place at the moment of need. It is important for learning experiences to provide the tools and knowledge that the clinicians need, when and where they need it. It is also imperative for L&D professionals to collaborate with operational areas to ensure the impact of learning is measured and learning can be aimed to close skill gaps.

What is something unexpected you learned while working on this book?

As I was doing research for the chapter, I found many interesting success stories of an EHR transforming the access to and quality of patient care in many areas of the country.

Is there something professional or personal you are proud of accomplishing in the past year?

I’m proud to be a co-author of the ATD Talent Development and Training in Healthcare Handbook that was recently published! It was an exciting project, and it was an honor to participate in a project with so many talented professionals. I wish this handbook had been available when I’d started my career in the healthcare learning arena!

What is a fun fact about yourself or one sentence of advice you’d like to share?

“It’s not what you know that matters; it’s using what you know to help others do greater things than you’ve ever done.” —Giancarlo Brotto