HR Pulse - Winter 2007 - (Page 54) The Value of a Learning Management System A Human Resources and Nursing Perspective By Dawna Martich, RN, MSN he question of how to coordinate and standardize the education and tracking for the employees of 16 acute care hospitals in five states was the driving force for one major healthcare organization to implement a Learning Management System (LMS). One year later, this organization is fine-tuning the use of the system and identifying ways to use more of the system’s features. 54 HR Pulse Winter 2007 T What Features Were Needed in an LMS? IASIS Healthcare, a group of one behavioral health and 16 acute care hospitals located in Arizona, Florida, Louisiana, Nevada, Utah and Texas, decided there needed to be a way to track employee mandatory education completion and provide documentation for regulatory body expectations. The decision to implement I-HEAL, the LMS, started at the corporate level. Nancy Pickler, SPHR, director of Human Resources at Mesa General Hospital, states, “prime considerations were [the need for] a tracking mechanism, how much administrative support was needed and what needed to be done to pull documentation to support regulatory body expectations.” Demonstrations highlighted the system features, ease of use and advantages of using an LMS to support training and tracking needs. In addition to the 16 acute care hospitals within IASIS Healthcare, there is one behavioral health hospital and one Medicare/Medicaid-managed health plan that serves 117,000 members, both of which are located in Arizona. There was a definite need to coordinate the education and tracking needs of 15,000 employees, 5,000 of which were nursing staff. How Was Training Conducted? Training started with staff member meetings designed to introduce the new online education system to all staff prior to hands-on classroom training. “Once these meetings concluded,” explains Cheryl Hobbs, RN, BSN, CEN, LP, Director of Education at The Medical Center of Southeast Texas, “the training staff attended sessions then conducted their own sessions for the remainder of the IASIS colleagues.” The training sessions were held over the period of one month >>
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