Keys to Effective Training in the Healthcare e-Learning Environment

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Managing healthcare e-Learning doesn’t have to be difficult, but there are three requirements that you just can’t afford to skip.

  • First: Ensure the system you use is accurate. Misinformation about medicine in the outside world is a significant problem. Unfortunately that is sometimes a problem within the field of medicine and health information management. For this reason, it is important to make sure that whatever system you use is screened for accuracy before using it as a training medium. This ensures that the information given to patients is substantive, and that the education provided is technically accurate and beneficial to patients as well as other healthcare practitioners.
  • Second: Ensure that the e-Learning platform is easy to use. Even if you are proficient in computer navigation, it’s likely that you’ve found a piece of software or website that was simply a pain to navigate. When you are considering one or more healthcare e-Learning solutions, make sure that the learning management system (LMS) is easy to navigate and that the platform is user friendly. This reduces the amount of time spent training employees, and helps them learn how to navigate the LMS with a minimum amount of difficulty. Make sure when considering a healthcare e-Learning solution that the system is easy to navigate, explains itself well so that you aren’t wasting large amounts of time training your employees on how to use the system, and that someone who has little to no computer expertise can navigate the system easily.
  • Third: Ensure that your training program is constantly evolving. This is necessary to keep pace with constant changes in the healthcare industry, and to support the theory that knowledge evolves over time. The information that we use to train healthcare professionals needs to evolve in relation to the knowledge that we gain about new healthcare methods, practices, policies, and procedures. For this reason, it is important to keep training programs up to date as new medical discoveries are made. This also ensures that patients are getting the best possible care, and healthcare employees are given the most accurate medical data to work with, in order to optimize their performance as healthcare practitioners.

To talk more about this, or anything else, please Contact Us. Thanks.

Which Software is Right for Your E-Learning Course?

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Choosing the best software for healthcare instructional design is your first step in designing an e-learning course and one of the most important in the overall process. There are a variety of products on the market, all with different functions and capabilities that may or may not suit your vision for the course.

healthcare instructional designOne of the old standards of e-learning software is Lectora. Now in its eleventh incarnation, Lectora has three different versions: Inspire, Online, and Publisher. All three of these offer templates and wizards to help speed up the process of creation, an extensive clip-art gallery to decorate the slides, test and survey creation, and the ability to publish the course in multiple formats, along with several other features. Inspire, though more expensive, also offers quite a few nifty multimedia features, like Flypaper Flash Creator, screen recorders, and the ability to edit audio and video. In version 11, social media capabilities have also been added to the software, allowing instructors to give their students the capability to like or share elements of the course on Facebook or Twitter; many other similar programs have no such social media components. Lectora is also the leader in accessibility, allowing students to use a screen-reader to access the course.

However, there are other types of e-learning software that are more user-friendly for a first-time creator of an online course. Articulate Storyline is one such course; its display closely resembles Microsoft Powerpoint, a program most users are very familiar with. Storyline offers a broad variety of templates, clip art and characters, and slide triggers in order to personalize your course. Storyline is also one of the best products on the market when it comes to creating branching scenarios. And, unlike Lectora, it doesn’t require a second program in order to use its mobile capabilities. Published content on Storyline can be accessed on PC, Mac, and iOS capable tablets.

However, when it comes to mobile learning perhaps the best choice is Adobe Captivate. This software is the easiest choice for developers creating a course that will be used on multiple platforms, automatically rearranging the layout of the content to fit any device from a desktop computer down to an iPhone. It also allows for mobile gesturing on touchscreen devices– learners can scroll through slides with a swipe of their finger. With a focus on design, it offers beautiful layouts, eye-catching color schemes, and numerous formatting features, and also allows for easy quizzing and even learning games to be included in the course. However, the interface for creating courses is slightly more difficult to navigate than other programs and takes getting used to for a first-time user of the software.

All three of these programs have varying pros, cons, and price points, and it’s very important to carefully weigh your options. Keep in mind your audience; if your course is designed for younger users or those who are constantly on-the-go, a program with strong mobile functionality is imperative, while for a course that aims to guide learners through training scenarios in areas like diagnostics or record-keeping a program that offers branching capabilities will make learning much easier and more fun. The right program can make the difference between a student who sticks with the course and masters the material and one who gives up early on because they just don’t understand.

Whichever software you choose to use in designing your healthcare course, Avidity Medical Design is here to help. If you have any questions about these programs and how we can serve you and your needs, don’t hesitate to contact us!

Keeping Learners Engaged is the Secret to Successful e-Learning

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When it comes to e-Learning, the key to success is student engagement. It doesn’t matter how comprehensive a course is. If students aren’t paying attention, they won’t learn and retain the information.

attention to e-learningThe science of “attention” is a hot topic in neuroscience and psychology. Attention refers to the brain’s ability to filter input and focus on what’s most important. Even with strong students, attention is never a steady state. According to a Harvard study, 46.9 percent of the time people are thinking about something other than what they’re doing.

The implications of this for e-Learning are enormous. Knowing that students’ minds wander much of the time, it’s essential to design courses that are highly engaging and reinforce material over and over again. Research indicates that certain factors increase engagement substantially. Here are just a few of the elements that trigger attention:

  • Personalized, relevant content
  • Simple, concise presentation
  • Emotionally evocative information
  • Use of high contrast in graphics
  • Element of surprise, so the presentation doesn’t become predictable

This is exactly the approach Avidity Medical Design takes in designing our healthcare courses. We combine subject matter expertise with a deep understanding of instructional design, so that every course excels in both content and presentation.

Avidity Medical Design ensures that students will be motivated to do the coursework and have a high level of understanding and retention. We design curriculum for all areas of healthcare, including health information management, billing, coding, transcription, electronic medical records, healthcare statistics, healthcare administration, and dentistry.

To find out how Avidity Medical Design can help you engage your students with e-Learning, please contact us.

Star Trek Comes to Your Classroom: How to Use the Screenless Display to Train Your Students

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screenless displaysScreenless display technology has been used in science fiction for decades, but this advanced display system has also been worked into a usable format over the last few years.The development of Google Glass in 2012 brought this technology to the forefront. It also created a wide range of possibilities in terms of how this technology could be used.

So how can you use the screenless display to train your students? From the standpoint of healthcare, how can you use screenless displays to train medical personnel and safeguard patient information? A few benefits to the healthcare field have already been realized, but many more may still be on the horizon.

How Screenless Displays Work

There are three main categories of screenless displays that come in the form of a wearable device. The first is the light guide optical element (LOE) device. This looks like a pair of glasses that enables users to view a see-through display imported from their phones or other digital device. The image is projected onto the thin glass of the device.

The retinal scanning device (RSD) and the virtual retinal display (VRD) work in almost the same way as each other, but using different equipment. In these cases, an image is projected directly onto the retina. VRD has been developing for over two decades, but more compact and easily accessible forms with better quality display are now being developed.

There is another type of screenless display that does not require a wearable device to view the object—hologram technology. The way this works is through a precise setup of lasers, mirrors and film. The laser light is guided by mirrors, going through a beam splitter, and each branch of the split beam goes through a diverging lens, which widens the beams. One beam goes straight to a photographic emulsion, while the other hits the object then is guided to the emulsion. The disruption caused by the difference in the two beams creates a viewable hologram.

How to Use Screenless Displays for Healthcare Training

All forms of screenless displays can be used for healthcare training. Each one can provide a large display of germs, cells, anatomy, or anything else that’s not easily seen with the naked eye. The case of holograms is especially helpful over screen displays because students and instructors can view a 3D image together and address any questions by interacting with the display.

How Screenless Display Improve Security

Wearable screenless devices may be best for protecting patients’ privacy. Healthcare information needs to be safeguarded and there are HIPPA rules that employees should follow, but mistakes do happen. Wearable screenless displays would cut down on the risk because the information would only be seen by the person wearing the device. No one could look over their should at their screen, they wouldn’t have to remember to lock their computer while stepping away. Patient information would only be available to the people meant to see it.

To learn more about advances in healthcare training or how Avidity Medical Design is striving to innovate healthcare education platforms, feel free to contact us.

How To Use Twitter To Train Healthcare Students In 3 Steps

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What can be said in 140 characters? To be honest a lot can be said between the first and last word that can change the world. It can start a revolution or raise awareness for a cause. The power of Twitter to shape the world is undeniable.

It brings people from all over the world into the global town square to air their thoughts, hopes and dreams for the world to latch on to. Twitter is a powerful tool that can also be used to change the worldTwitter healthcare and educate healthcare students at the same time. Some might say; how can Twitter possible be used to educate healthcare students? The answer is based on 3 simple concepts:

Study In Real Time

Utilizing Twitter to train healthcare students is easy once you set up your Twitter account.  Twitter allows you to communicate instantaneously with anyone on the platform.

This allows you to have real time conversations with your cohort about study material, class assignments and other relevant information. Organizing a study session is as simple as asking your friends to follow you and starting a conversation.

The average person reads about 300 words per minute, so a study session should be easy for everyone to keep up with.

The Hashtag

The # sign or hashtag is by far the most important symbol in the Twitterverse. It serves a dual purpose. It allows you to organize your tweets and helps you find them when you need them.

For example say a student wants to start a subject on ICD-10, all they would have to do is enter #ICD-10 and the tweets covering this subject with this hashtag handle can be found with a search.

The hashtag makes finding and organizing your conversations efficient and easy to manage. Hashtags allow you to create communities of people interested in the same topic by making it easier for them to find and share info related to it.

Finding Information You Need

Along with bringing together people from all walks of life, Twitter is also an effective tool for disseminating information. Millions of Twitter users use their accounts to promote a certain agenda, spread ideas and information.

Twitter allows you to link and share web pages that you think are important. While researching information for an assignment you may find something interesting on the web.

The odds are that this website will have a Twitter share button for you to click. This allows your followers and classmates to see the website you shared making researching information a breeze.

When these three concepts are blended together you get a platform that allows you to organize in groups, find topics and research information effortlessly. Twitter can serve as a valuable tool in educating the next generation of healthcare professionals on a platform that they are accustomed to using. If you have any questions about this topic please contact us today.

Moodle for Medicine: Choosing a Learning Management System for Healthcare Students That Works

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One of the most important decisions you can make for your healthcare students is choosing the right learning management system (LMS). Choosing the right LMS is important because it helps students navigate successfully within each course, and it helps professors fulfill the requirements of teaching the course and facilitating ongoing communication with students. There are many different learning management systems on the market today. Some of the most popular LMS platforms include Moodle, Blackboard, Angel, and eCollege. Let’s look at how each of these platforms can be used in the context of healthcare education.

Moodle for medicine

Moodle

Moodle has all the features of a typical learning management system such as assignment submission and online grading. Moodle also has a discussion forum, instant messaging, online calendars, online news and announcements and can facilitate online quizzes. In addition, Moodle users are continually developing third-party plugins that can be used with this LMS. Moodle provides a centralized location for submitting assignments, taking online quizzes, and participating in discussion forums.
Blackboard

Blackboard is an incredibly popular learning management system that has been on the market for years. It offers seven different platforms for its learning management systems that have been adapted for use by K-12 schools, universities and  companies. Blackboard offers your students a tried-and-true learning management system to facilitate their studies.

Angel

Angel offers healthcare students and professors a very clean interface and extensive real world feedback. Angel’s interface is set up to engage busy students. Its opening screen allows student users to quickly check their course guide, see what’s new, look at current activities, track grades and look at their own personal lists of tasks or to do notes for each class. It has a feeling of activity associated with the student user screens. For professors, it offers real world data and feedback on student progress to streamline communication between instructors and students.

eCollege

eCollege is a learning management system that is produced by textbook provider Pearson. eCollege combines a learning management system with streamline access to textbooks. If your school uses Pearson textbooks to support your learning, eCollege integrates ebooks within its learning management system and offers students interactive ways to use their platform.

Which Learning Management System Is For You?

Moodle, Blackboard, Angel and eCollege are all learning management systems with something to offer your healthcare students. Please contact us to further discuss which of these learning management system will work best for your healthcare students. We can help guide you to the best choice for your students. We look forward to helping you.

Bloom’s Taxonomy Brings Your Healthcare Training to Life

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Course design is all about pedagogy, understanding how we learn best. But it’s not enough just to learn something to know it, students also need to be able to apply it. Unfortunately, so much of medical education relies on rote learning and memorization. Students may not remember how many hours they spent pouring over flashcards before a pre-med anatomy and physiology exam. Likewise, students may not remember everything they were tested on. That’s because the learning they are expected to do doesn’t involve applying that knowledge in a real world healthcare setting (the cadaver lab doesn’t count).

At Avidity Medical Design, we employ Bloom’s Taxonomy in training healthcare learners to bring your education to life. Bloom’s Taxonomy is the pedagogy sine qua non for Bloom's Taxonomy Training Healthcare Learnersholistic, integrative learning. For a simplified understanding of this concept, consider this excerpt from Wikipedia:

Bloom’s taxonomy refers to a classification of the different objectives that educators set for students (learning objectives). It divides educational objectives into three “domains”: cognitive, affective, and psychomotor (sometimes loosely described as “knowing/head”, “feeling/heart” and “doing/hands” respectively). Within the domains, learning at the higher levels is dependent on having attained prerequisite knowledge and skills at lower levels.[2] A goal of Bloom’s taxonomy is to motivate educators to focus on all three domains, creating a more holistic form of education.[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom’s_taxonomy)

The idea is to structure learning as simultaneous cognitive assimilation. Using given information, and understanding the intended application, we design our lesson plans to teach intellectual understanding and real-life, physical application at the same time. This approach saves time in the classroom and negates the need for flashcards and hours of homework.

Furthermore, our lesson plans based on Bloom’s Taxonomy are structured to include strategic variables that increase the depth of knowledge on a given topic. Your healthcare learners will be challenged to understand the idea on a cognitive level and to apply that understanding in different settings with different tools. Your students learn key concepts, standard procedures, and effective improvisation techniques all in one lesson.

Today’s healthcare industry is a fast changing environment that demands constant adaptation. Training healthcare learners requires education that can adapt just as fast. At Avidity Medical Design, we are dedicated to ensuring the highest quality education by using the most effective learning tools to produce students who are as detailed as they are innovative. Contact us to learn more about how we can design the most effective and engaging courses to bring your healthcare training to life.

Healthcare Education in “the Cloud” Pours Information Into Our Hands

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How does “the cloud” enhance the educational experience of today’s healthcare professional? The cloud gives students unbridled access to the information they need to grow in the profession.

Gone are the days when flashcards were the only way to test a student’s knowledge. Technological innovations such as the smartphone, tablet and apps have transformed the landscape of healthcare education forever. The quest for healthcare knowledge is migrating to apps where information is available 24/7.

healthcare education in the cloudYour Health: There is an App For That

A report released by mobile industry analyst Research2Guidance predicts that by 2017, 3.4 billion people will have accessto tablets and smartphones with access to mobile healthcare apps. Of the 3.4 billion, 1.7 billion people will have downloaded them. To say that healthcare apps are popular is an understatement. That being said, how does the cloud and the mobile movement in general help hospitals train their staff for 21st century healthcare?

Raining Down Information

The cloud allows hospitals to reach physicians and other healthcare practitioners wherever they are. Being “in the cloud” also allows hospitals to train staff year round without the ebb and flow of information that comes from older forms of information sharing such as journals and conferences.The power of the cloud and mobile technology is undeniable. Knowledge is power and technology releases that power for the good of humanity.

Thirst For Knowledge

The availability of healthcare training apps has exploded over the last couples of years. Many nurses and healthcare professionals turn to their smartphones to acquire new information on drugs, diseases and procedures.

A study conducted by Wolters Kluwer Health’s Lippincott Williams Wilkins (LLW) of 3,900 nurses indicated in early 2012, 71 percent of nurses were already using smartphones professionally. Medical practitioners should be encouraged to download reputable healthcare applications and use them to increase their fund of knowledge and reduce the likelihood of medical errors. Here is a short list of apps that hospitals can use to improve patient care:

  1. Nursing Central
  2. NurseTabs: Fundamentals by AusQuinn
  3. NCSBN Learning Extension Medication Flashcards
  4. The Merck Manuals For Mobile
  5. Shots By STFM

 

E-Learning Platforms

The power of e-Learning helps hospitals stay current on emerging trends using the right healthcare platforms. Here is a brief overview of the most popular platforms available:

HealthStream Learning Center – The most widely adopted learning management system in the healthcare industry. An estimated 3.4 million healthcare workers actively use their system.

TidWiT Social Learning Solutions –  A learning platform that offers social healthcare solutions for medical providers. The platform is 100% cloud based.

There are a variety of approaches that hospitals can use to provide continuing education for healthcare professionals, whether they are nurses, physicians, coders, or CEOs. Cloud, apps, and e-Learning solutions are the future. Incorporating these solutions into a comprehensive continuing education program creates durable and long-lasting change for all healthcare professionals. Contact us today to discuss how we can bring your current healthcare training program into the future.