In one of the most high-risk, highly-regulated, and constantly changing industries, education and compliance are crucial in healthcare. While the healthcare industry has become more high-tech, it’s also become an alphabet soup of regulations with healthcare professionals having to understand how to navigate regulations and programs like Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, HIPPA, HITECH, FDA, GDPR, and the False Claims Act. And that’s before you add on the training around how to operate the electronic records platforms and other systems your employees need to know.
As a compliance officer or L&D leader in your healthcare organization, your plate is full. Not only are you training staff on equipment, procedures, and regulations, you may also be educating staff about information security, privacy, and confidentiality issues while also helping employees prepare for an upgrade to your medical records system. Having a Learning Management System (LMS) partner that understands the challenges you face while also providing a secure, stable platform to protect your data and training records is key to successful healthcare compliance and training.
Content is key
As regulations and standards are constantly changing there’s no need for your team to spend time creating custom content for this. You can leave the heavy lifting to content providers who specialize in maintaining healthcare compliance courses. Training on regulations such as HIPPA or Blood Borne Pathogens do not typically need a custom touch, and there are many content providers and styles to choose from. Finding a content partner that is a good fit for your organization is the main task. eThink can connect you with industry-leading content partners, or you may already have some you work with. Not only is this a cost-effective strategy, but employing a content provider also assures timely updates. This also frees up your internal team to manage contracts for custom content and better manage learners within your organization.
Many of your existing systems may provide training resources. Finding a place to securely provide access and tracking for these resources is integral to having confident users of those systems. eThink has experience working with several of these companies, including Epic Systems, to get approval and clearance to help our clients manage this protected content.
An LMS such as Totara Learn or Moodle that is content-agnostic and standards-compliant gives you flexibility to leverage a mixture of content that meets a wide range of needs in a singular, user-friendly platform. While some compliance-focused platforms limit you to SCORM or AICC content packages only, both of the Totara Learn and Moodle learning platforms support and allow for reporting on these in addition to a broad variety of content and resource types, enabling you to utilize a best-of-breed content strategy that supports education around your policies, procedures, and compliance related training.
Tracking and Reporting
A stable, flexible platform is only part of the equation when it comes to compliance training. Extensive logging and reporting give you the assurance that your employees, distributors or customers are receiving the training they need to keep your organization in compliance.
Managing users along with their training assignments, deadlines, and completion data is a core aspect of the LMS. Reporting regularly on this information and having it readily available at all times for audits reduces your risk and should provide an efficient way of disseminating this information. Seek out an LMS partner who is knowledgeable about healthcare reporting requirements and able to assist with your specific compliance reports.
Beyond completion tracking, organizations sometimes ask about support for Title 21 CFR Part 11 of the Code of Federal Regulations, which establishes FDA requirements to consider electronic records and electronic signatures trustworthy, reliable, and legal equivalents to paper records and handwritten signatures. We’re in no way suggesting the LMS would replace function of the EHR/EMR systems, but many healthcare organizations require conformity to 21cfr11 (as it’s also known) across all systems for consistency, and both Totara and Moodle help you meet this requirement. Compliance is dependent on both the technical controls implemented by the LMS and organization controls, such as policy and procedure, that must be met by your organization.
Beyond compliance
While you may be tasked initially with compliance training, the LMS can be used for more than that. Consider leveraging your LMS investment to manage onboarding of new employees, foster talent development, and offer soft skills training.
eThink offers fully-managed eLearning solutions for the open-source Moodle and Totara Learn Learning Management Systems. These flexible and configurable platforms help organizations meet their specific compliance needs to help efficiently and effectively meet a range of educational and business needs including compliance and much more.
For further reading, check out 7 Tips for Creating a Successful Compliance Training Program or Using an LMS to Drive Talent Management.
Or, contact us today to learn how eThink can help your organization.
