Learning
Credentialing
Compliance
Healthcare compliance and regulatory training is one of those can’t-live-with-it, can’t-live-without-it necessities. Can’t live with it because it’s time-consuming and often mundane with more seemingly always around the corner. Can’t live without it because many training courses are required by law to maintain licensures, stay compliant with regulation and accreditation standards, and avoid costly penalties.
Healthcare training doesn’t have to be tedious, rinse-and-repeat tasks for an already busy staff. The best healthcare compliance training programs make it an impactful experience to guide employees in making ethical and compliant choices.
Medical Staff Coordinator at Williamson Memorial Kelly L. Smith is no stranger to healthcare training courses. Having worked in a variety of learning management systems (LMS) throughout her healthcare career, Kelley has come to know what kind of training courses best resonate with providers – and which ones don’t.
The Value of Engaging Healthcare Training Content
Healthcare employees at all levels have to take ongoing training and compliance courses regardless of the model’s format or quality. But there’s a significant difference between training that is simply required and training that adds real value. Providing engaging and customized content that meets ever-changing regulatory and accreditation standards with ease is a win-win. Many times, that is easier with the help of a learning management system (LMS).
That being said, just because staff are completing required compliance tasks, “daily” compliance is not guaranteed. There’s a vast difference between being compliant and being survey ready. It really boils down to how healthcare staff translate and apply the training, policies, and regulations to their day-to-day practice. It’s one thing to check the box, it’s another to digest and demonstrate in real-time practice. Arming healthcare staff with engaging and applicable training content helps avoid an in-one-ear-out-the-other approach and fosters an audit-ready culture of compliance.
Three Characteristics of Impactful Compliance Education
According to Kelley, impactful education includes video components, real-world examples, and a knowledge check. When courses don’t include interactive elements or industry-specific insight, providers are less likely to learn and engage with the training and it becomes a go-through-the-motions task to cross off the to-do list.
Interactive Content
“Courses with video over just listening are much more engaging,” Kelley says. “You’re not just reading things over and over. Learning is happening instead of just breezing through the content.”
In addition to video features, courses should be organized into manageable sections and presented to the user in a seamless and effective cadence. The best courses are created when instructional designers work alongside subject matter experts to make sure every course is engaging, intuitive, and accurate. Instructional designers are the ones who shape the learning process by breaking down the content into manageable pieces and using interactive features to improve comprehension. For example, they determine when content should auto-play and when navigation should be locked. These decisions, based on adult learning theory, ensure the course materials and overall user experience are as efficient and effective as possible.
Relevant Content
The healthcare sector is unique in its demands, therefore having an LMS built for the industry and specific facility needs and challenges is paramount. This includes the content of its training. Instead of vague, one-size-fits-all examples, it’s highly beneficial to have training that uses scenarios that mirror experiences healthcare professionals face daily. These scenarios not only make the content more relatable but also reinforce practical problem-solving skills. Healthcare staff can see how their training applies directly to their roles or their facility while seamlessly meeting and maintaining the necessary regulatory requirements and accreditation standards.
Just like governing regulations and standards, healthcare learning and compliance courses must always be evolving. Education teams need to keep an active pulse on legislation, technology advancements, medical research, and more, so that courses can be quickly updated to ensure organizations and their providers remain consistently compliant. This is where policy and subject matter experts play a critical role — a big part of impactful content is ensuring it meets regulatory requirements, keeping the organization compliant.
Learning Checks
Post-course assessments are another area of healthcare training that can easily become a mindless clickthrough activity. In order to avoid stale content, it’s best for the questions to be unique rather than recycling questions each time the course is completed. Presenting a new set of questions keeps the training fresh and encourages providers to remain focused and understand the material in an efficient and optimized manner.
Impactful content incorporates both subjective and data-driven post-assessment reviews. Data-driven outcomes give administrators insight to see which courses were started but never completed, which could be a result of disengagement or lack of informative content. Subjective reviews often come in the form of post-assessment feedback, such as surveys and ratings. This insight can be a guide to analyze which courses are resonating and which need a refresh.
Empowering Admins: Simplifying Training Management
Impactful healthcare training isn’t just about the providers and staff — it’s also about how easily administrators can manage, assign, and track courses. A robust LMS can help organizations stay ahead of the compliance curve by helping administrators seamlessly keep hundreds of employees on pace and on track for healthcare training – whether that’s with annual compliance modules, new hire orientations, continuing education, or changing regulatory requirements.
There is a world of LMS options available, but not all of those on the market will adequately meet your needs. Using an all-in-one platform within an enterprise-grade healthcare LMS, such as MedTrainer, saves time, eliminates tedious tasks, makes training cost effective, and puts your organization in a position to maintain compliance without all the hassle. Thinking about making a switch? Here are some more features to consider:
- One-Click Onboarding: Onboard one or thousands of new employees with just one click using pre-set workflows based on role, location, and department, including employees from multiple facilities.
- Custom Reports and Tracking: Comprehensive real-time tracking and reporting saves time, boosts completion rates and supports audit and survey readiness while providing transparency to the leadership team.
- Easy to Use: Choose an LMS that is designed with the busy healthcare professional in mind. Look for easy and consistent navigation, the ability to stop and resume courses at a later date, and simple clickthroughs from reminder emails.
- Training Reminders and Notifications: Automated notifications and reminders keep healthcare professionals and LMS admins on track to ensure course completion isn’t missed.
- Create Courses: Healthcare organizations need to be able to easily create and upload their own organization-specific training content, while taking advantage of the LMS features. Look for the ability to build custom training modules accompanied by post-course assessments, with reports and automated email reminders.
Ready to Transform Your Healthcare Training?
Healthcare training doesn’t have to be a time-consuming hassle or a repetitive checkbox exercise. As Kelley L. Smith highlighted above, organizations can avoid this mindset through impactful training – i.e. those with engaging videos, relatable real-world examples, and interactive content that resonates with healthcare providers and their facilities. This type of meaningful education not only helps staff absorb critical information but also fosters a culture of compliance that goes beyond merely meeting requirements.
Smith relies on MedTrainer’s learning management system for healthcare-specific content designed by industry experts with intuitive features like automated reminders, customizable reporting, and one-click onboarding. When asked how likely she would be to recommend MedTrainer to a colleague, Smith says 10 out of 10.
See MedTrainer’s learning solutions for yourself to find how we can help your organization create meaningful, impactful training experiences that drive compliance, confidence, and care quality.