Using Learning Management System to Provide Training for Nursing Support Staff Melissa R. Crane Providence Hospital Education Department Mobile, Alabama United States
[email protected]
Abstract: At Providence Hospital, it was noted that turnover rates for Nursing Support was 72% in 2008. A survey of the employees showed that improper training of their job duties was the highest reason for termination. The purpose of this project is to create an online training curriculum targeting the specific job duties of the Nursing Support staff in order to improve job satisfaction and decrease employee turnover rates. Modules were created using Camtasia® and Articulate® and uploaded to the hospital’s learning management system. The curriculum consisted of 14 modules and took approximately 3 months to create. The results showed that in June 2010 turnover rate had dropped to 30%. The training allowed the employees to better learn their job duties while having the convenience of taking online courses at anytime during their shift. The objective to improve employee turnover rates and decreased new hire training costs were met. Introduction The role of a Nursing Support is vital to the daily running of a hospital unit. The support staff is responsible for entering patient orders, physician consults, and updating the medical chart. However, these employees were trained on the job instead of attending a formal orientation. For fiscal year (FY) 2008, Providence Hospital noted there was a 72% turnover rate of these employees with an estimated new hire training cost of $144,000 annually. An employee satisfaction survey of the target group noted that 2.7% of staff did not feel confident in doing their daily tasks and 16.2% felt they did not receive a proper orientation to their job. In addition, 16.2% stated they would more than likely leave their job within a year. The survey was completed by 37 of 67 (55%) nursing staff employees. The same survey showed that 100% of nursing support staff felt confident in using a computer. Therefore, it was decided that an online training would be the best format. Online learning will allow the staff to take the training during any shift and at their desk. The hospital had been using online training for five years prior to this project utilizing only PowerPoint® modules with post-test. For this project, we wanted a multimedia format that included video, audio and screen recordings. Camtasia® software was selected to be purchased for this project due to it’s capability of doing screen recordings and voice audio. In addition, headsets with microphone were also purchased. Methods The project team invited three seasoned nursing support staff to consult. They identified the areas that needed concentration to suit the daily job duties of the target group. Theses areas were broken down into seven major categories, organizational skills, medical records, order processing, supply chain, computer applications, clinical, and customer service. Each of these seven categories had five to six subcategories, which would become the individual online courses. Subject Matter Experts (SME) were identified in each subcategory, 14 in all. Each SME was asked to determine what the most common mistakes they have seen made by the target audience and what did the target audience need to know about their department in order to efficiently perform their daily tasks. Over a three-month period, the SME’s met with the hospital’s computer educator to screen record the process of how to properly perform daily tasks. These screen recording were inserted into PowerPoint® presentations with short post-test assessments and the entire module was finished with Articulate® software for upload to the LMS.
- 40 -
The final product consisted of 14 individual modules and it was estimated to take a total of 10 hours to complete the entire curriculum. Results The curriculum was implemented in June of 2009 to all current and new nursing support staff, just before FY09 ended. The FY10 report showed turnover for the target audience dropped by 42% and estimated training costs dropped from $144,000 in FY08 to $60,000 in FY10. Survey results showed 70.2% of nursing support staff felt that the online training modules assisted them in knowing how to perform their daily tasks more efficiently and 83.8% felt they received a good orientation to their job. Conclusions Overall, the project successfully provided the nursing support staff standardized training they needed to become satisfied in their jobs. One drawback was allowing the staff to complete training at their desk. It would be better to have the staff go to one of the two computer learning labs to view the training without the usual distractions for the busy units. In addition, the screen recordings were placed on the hospital intranet for the staff to view at any time without having to re-take the entire curriculum. Plans for the future are to update the course annually to account for policy and procedure changes as well as new software and upgrades. Acknowledgements A special thank you to Margaret Paulus, Staffing Coordinator and Rebecca Windley, Informatics Specialist at Providence Hospital for their hard work dedication to this project.
- 41 -
