Online healthcare learning - in minutes not months

Healthcare is a complex business. So many things to learn, so much new knowledge to constantly master. The sector is awash with documents from compliance to clinical guidelines, all with oodles of detail and never enough time to train, retain and recall. As it is patients health, even lives, that matter, there’s little room for error. Yet so much training is still delivered via lectures and PowerPoint in rooms full of professionals who are badly needed on the front line. There must be a better way to deliver this regulatory and clinical knowledge?

Online learning is part of the solution but traditional online learning takes months to produce and even one 50 page clinical guideline is often prohibitively expensive. With this in mind, rather than use tools where most of the budget goes on graphics and not interaction, AI is producing tools that do this for you. One of those tools is WildFire, a service that creates high-retention in minutes not months at a faction of previous costs.

Sources

So far we’ve delivered a lot of content to a range of organisations from a range of pharmaceutical companies and a Royal College to the NHS. The content originated as:

·      Documents

·      PowerPoints

·      Podcasts

·      Videos

Easy input

With a modest amount of preparation, one takes the text file (or automatically created transcripts from podcasts and video) and cut and paste them into WildFire, which identifies what it thinks are the main learning points. Taking our lead from recent research in cognitive science, well summarised by researchers in Make It Stick, we focus not on multiple-choice questions (see weaknesses here) but open input, even voice, if desired. Open input is superior to MCQs as it results in better retention and recall.

Frictionless

Note that healthcare documents are often highly regulated, and the fact that we take the original document means we are not breaking that covenant. It also means almost no friction between designers and subject matter experts. The content has already been signed-off – we use that content in an unadulterated form.

Effortful learning

The learner has to literally type in the correct answers, identified by our AI engine. But we do much more. We also get the AI to identify links out to supplementary content. This is done automatically. This works well in healthcare, as the vocabulary, definitions and concepts can be daunting.

Chunking

We break the content down into small 10-15 minute learning experiences. This is necessary for focus as well as frequency of formative assessment. So a large compliance or clinical guideline document, such as a NICE Guideline, can be broken down meaningfully and accessed, as and when needed.

Competence

At the end of each pass through one of these short modules, your knowledge is assessed as Green (known), Amber (nearly known) or Red (not known). You must repeat the Ambers and Reds until you reach full 100% competence. This matters in healthcare. Getting 70% is fine but the other 30% can kill.

Curation

We don’t stop there. At the end of each module you can add curated content (again using AI) by searching for content directly related to the modules at hand from the selected learning points. This guided curation increases relevance. This is the stuff that you could know, as opposed to the stuff you should know.

Types of content

This is about moving from reading to retention. One clinical guideline may be intended for many audiences, clinicians, various healthcare professionals, carers, even patients. Updates can be delivered separately when they are published. In general, WildFire has been used for:

·      Peer-reviewed medical papers

·      Royal College clinical Guidelines

·      NICE Guidelines

·      Clinician in charge of trial podcasts

·      Question & answer session with experts

·      Clinician in charge of trial video

·      Nurse training videos

·      Patient videos

·      Training PowerPoints

·      Process documents

·      Compliance documents

·      Sales processes

·      Lots more….

Uses

What matters most is not that this learning content is useful but how it is used. We have delivered online learning prior to workshops and seminars, so that expensive F2F training can benefit from everyone being brought up to speed on the basic knowledge and vocabulary. Just as important is the post F2F experience of reinforcement and revision for exams, new jobs and so on. The content is far more successful when you know the context for delivery.

Conclusion

A full trial looking at speed of production, ese of use and learning efficacy has been done, and is avilable on request. So, if you have good assets that are not being used for learning, WildFire offers a way to get them into effortful, high retention and recall online learning, in minutes not months. To find out more or ask for ademo see here.