By Devin Partida, Editor-in-Chief, ReHack.com
LinkedIn: Devin Partida
LinkedIn: ReHack Magazine
Health care is witnessing a surge in IT innovations, from telemedicine to electronic health records management to AI integrations. Providing adequate training to adapt to these advancements is necessary to ensure staff can harness their full potential in enhancing patient outcomes and operational efficiency. It’s also essential for addressing the growing skills gap in the industry.
Creating effective training modules is central to this development. This means finding ways to capture employee interest and keep them engaged as they juggle learning with other daily responsibilities.
Designing engaging educational content for medical professionals is a nuanced process that requires a deep understanding of general adult learning fundamentals. This approach encompasses three broad steps.
Initial Planning
The main focus of this stage is to establish a strong foundation for seamless knowledge and skills transfer. Health care staff are extremely busy individuals, so it’s important to first map out how to best connect with the audience.
Defining Module Objectives
Health IT curriculum resources comprise 25 core focus areas, with new instructional materials introduced periodically to reflect the most recent updates. Determine what the module aims to achieve within the overall context of the training program. This is essential to creating relevant and valuable lesson content related to the specific subject matter.
Module Duration
How long should each training session last to ensure comprehensive coverage and maximize retention? Complex topics will likely take longer and require more in-depth elaborations, whereas elementary subjects may involve a simple brush-over within a few minutes. These considerations will largely impact the total time frame for each module.
Lesson Delivery
Decide on the most effective delivery format for the module. Consider a blend of multimedia learning tools, such as PowerPoint presentations, pre recorded lectures and virtual reality courses to cater to diverse learning styles.
Detailed Module Development
The second step involves fleshing out the module details. Understanding how adults think and learn is the key to developing an effective training framework. Leverage the six core principles of andragogy to improve the chances of seamless content assimilation. For example, presenting staff with problem-oriented concepts to apply to real-life issues can make lessons more engaging and relatable.
Module Breakdown
Design a comprehensive plan for each chapter, outlining each topic and ensuring it adequately covers the relevant points. It should also align with the broader training objectives. This step helps ensure a well-structured and comfortably paced learning experience.
Interactivity
Given the complexities surrounding health care IT systems, introducing interactive learning sessions is often necessary to enhance retention. Design quizzes and hands-on activities to test the depth of students’ comprehension at the end of each module.
Consider setting up simulations to measure how well they can apply what they just learned. For instance, it’s common for companies to simulate various cyberattack scenarios to ensure employees follow the necessary mitigation steps and adhere to best practices.
Accessibility
Training modules must be accessible to all health care staff, including those with disabilities. Additionally, all the content should be convenient to use on various devices to simplify learning.
Supplementary Materials
Some modules may require additional resources, such as recent industry publications, case studies and instructional videos, to enhance the training process. However, it’s important not to overwhelm trainees with unnecessary materials in case they lose interest in the lesson and feel like they wasted their time.
Learning Reinforcement
Establish a system for follow-up activities to reinforce learning. Post-training review sessions and peer group discussions can ensure continuous engagement and application. These methods also foster a commitment to ongoing education, which is increasingly important as newer health care IT systems are introduced to the ecosystem.
Feedback and Updatability
Establish a feedback collection system to measure training effectiveness and impact from the trainees’ perspective. Use this information to adjust the content to improve engagement. Design training modules to be updatable to reflect changes in industry best practices or organizational policies.
Design Informative and Engaging Training Modules
IT training is foundational to ensuring that medical professionals are well-equipped to navigate the ever-changing landscape of digital health care. Follow these steps to create an effective module with a well-rounded blend of interactive and engaging content for long-term retention and application.