As a talent development professional working in healthcare, it’s your job to make sure the workforce is trained and ready to take on all the demands of today’s tough business environment. The ATD 2015 International Conference & Expo offers a sampling of sessions that present healthcare-specific guidance on change management, learning methodologies, and talent development related to topics you’re focused on, such as:

• accountable care

• customer service culture

• reimbursement culture

• electronic health management

• training within an expert culture. 

SU316 - Training In A Changing Environment: Implementing an Electronic Health Records System 

Infirmary Health System IT Director Bobby Zarr and Vincent Lucey of ANCILE Solutions will present best practices in designing and executing a learning strategy for hospitals implementing an electronic health records system that is:

• proficient and compliant with current information standards

• supportive of patient needs and expectations

• adheres to government regulations. 

A case study details how a mid-sized hospital system successfully rolled out a new electronic health records systems across three acute-care hospitals, nearly 1,000 physicians, and more than 500 support staff serving more than 110,000 patients per year. Zarr and Lucey will specifically focus on how the hospital was able to meet HIPAA and ACA compliance requirements, as well as safety requirements and patient needs. 

An interactive exercise will allow you to learn how to use a multi-faceted EHR system through bite-size e-learning. You will also learn how they were able to increase physician engagement by implementing mobile e-learning across the organization's enterprise. 

M319 - Leadership: The Critical Factor for Creating Customer Service in Healthcare 

Why is delivering legendary service so challenging in the healthcare industry, and what can we do to deliver on our promises to both internal and external customers? Most customer service initiatives take something seemingly simple—caring for customers—and turn it into something complicated, with too many rules and guidelines for a frontline service provider to remember when they are with a customer. 

To address this issue, speakers Victoria Halsey and Kathy Cuff, senior leaders at The Ken Blanchard Companies, detail the five elements of customer care in the ICARE Model, and demonstrate how they can easily be used throughout healthcare facilities. You will analyze how the treatment of internal and external customers is a direct result of leaders' treatment of employees. 

Specific case studies and examples will demonstrate how you can connect the dots between great customer service and a winning healthcare organization.   

TU206 - Get Your Move On! Learning Initiative Prepares Staff for New Hospital 

As University Health System prepared for its move into the new Sky Tower, an interdisciplinary team began an intensive learning initiative to prepare the staff. Through the theme and mantra “Get Your Move!,” the team delineated its mission, vision, and values for the project, and communicated this across the organization.

Speaker Jacqueline Burandt, executive director for the center for learning excellence at University Health System, details how the executive team was involved from the beginning and played a key role throughout. Preparing a timeline and implementation plan came next. A blended learning approach included building a website, orientation and tours, simulations, codes and drills, use of Lean principles, a move rehearsal, and scripting staff to communicate with patients before and during the move.

Get Your Move On! also used train-the-trainer approaches to help decentralize, meet 24/7 schedules, and save money. In addition, the organization also brought in and trained students from local colleges and universities to assist on move day—so that patient care was not affected. Finally, a comprehensive post-move evaluation was conducted and reported on using all five levels of evaluation. 

TU319 - Applied Foresight Methods: Employee Engagement and Patient-Centered Care 

In June of 2010 the Ontario Government passed the Excellent Care for All Act (ECFA), which mandates quality improvement measures and "strengthens the healthcare sector's organizational focus and accountability to deliver high quality patient care." This mandate has heavily influenced the strategic direction of at least one hospital in Ontario—Kingston General Hospital—to ensure that the legislative duty is fulfilled through a strategy of "Outstanding Care, Always" and the integration of patient- and family-centered care philosophy throughout the organization.

Speaker Mary Myers, lead advisor of leadership and learning at Kingston General Hospital, explains how both the legislation and the strategic direction of the hospital are driving forces behind the creation of a framework that bring patient- and family-centered care to life. If the idea that engaged employees create a better patient experience is to be believed, then employee engagement across all employee audiences must be enabled and sustained with every employee stakeholder. 

W110 - Moving Healthcare Learning From Self-Prescribed to Business Partnership  

In the healthcare industry, training classes are often the result of a business leader telling the learning professional what the training gap is, what the training topics should entail, and when and how long the training will occur. In essence, the leader has diagnosed the illness and has self-prescribed the treatment with no path identified as to how success will be measured.

In this session, Christiana Care Health System Systems Analyst Jerry Brannen outlines the process his organization used to form a business partnership relationship with a key leader to plan and execute the redesign of a new user program for the system's electronic medical record (EMR) application. By following the Kirkpatrick Business Partnership Model, the specific outcomes needed by the organization were identified and used as the basis for the development and measurement of a training solution.