Training is not adoption

A team can be fully trained and still not adopt a system. Training covers how to perform a task in the new tool. Adoption requires that the new way is at least as fast as the old way for the tasks people do most, and that the workarounds they currently rely on have somewhere to go. If a nurse's fastest route to a piece of information is still a phone call, the phone call will continue regardless of training attendance.

Find the workarounds before you design

Every clinical service runs on undocumented workarounds: the shared spreadsheet, the whiteboard, the handover sheet somebody prints. These exist because a system failed to support something real. If your design does not account for them, they survive the rollout and the new system becomes an additional burden rather than a replacement. Ask what people print, and why.

Protect clinical time or accept the consequence

Clinical input into design and testing is routinely scheduled around clinics, which means it does not happen. The result is a configuration signed off by people who did not have time to examine it, and the problems surface at go-live when they are most expensive. Protected time is a real cost and should appear in the business case rather than being assumed away.

Plan the first two weeks in detail

The period immediately after go-live determines how the system is regarded for years. Plan for reduced clinical throughput, on-floor support presence, a fast route for fixing configuration problems, and a daily forum where issues are raised and answered. Organisations that plan for a productivity dip get through it. Organisations that assume normal throughput create a crisis and then attribute it to the software.

Identify who will be asked, not who was trained

In every team there are a few people others turn to. They are not always the designated superusers. Find them during design, involve them early, and make sure they are confident before go-live. Their opinion of the system will spread faster and carry more weight than any communication plan.