HealthStream offers performance learning management solutions to help develop your healthcare staff into leaders and reduce turnover.
View All ProductsHealthStream works with healthcare organizations to create engaging and high-quality training videos for your staff and management.
View All ProductsImprove care quality and save money by making informed decisions about your healthcare facility and staff with HealthStream's reporting analytics solution.
View All ProductsHealthStream's proven methods for the improvement and overall engagement of your healthcare staff foster a positive workplace and increase retention rates.
View All ProductsThe leadership development program from HealthStream helps mold your high-potential healthcare employees into proven leaders.
View All ProductsFulfill compliance requirements with a variety of programs and courseware designed to address critical regulatory requirements as well as educate staff to recognize and mitigate risks.
View All ProductsBy increasing your healthcare staff's focus on quality and safety with HealthStream, they can help to reduce medical errors and readmission rates.
View All ProductsLearn about what HealthStream's healthcare policy management software and how it can help aid your organization efforts.
View All ProductsHealthStream's education helps address diversity, equity, and inclusion within your organization, as well as promoting health equity in the communities you serve.
View All ProductsDeliver custom or industry designed product training directly to patient and resident care environments to reinforce proper use.
View All ProductsTeach your healthcare staff about the revenue cycle and claim management through targeted training and video tools from HealthStream.
View All ProductsIn all areas of resuscitation, from neonatal to elderly care, clinical deterioration is a risk that can be avoided with the help of HealthStream's training programs.
View All ProductsHealthStream's EMS Program offers a comprehensive, CAPCE accredited EMS course library that meets National Registry annual recertification.
View All ProductsNurture the skills of your nurses and medical staff to help mold them into effective leaders with development training from HealthStream.
View All ProductsMake sure your clinicians have the support they need to provide competent care with clinical competency training and development from HealthStream.
View All ProductsHealthStream’s learning management system and comprehensive suite of competency management tools empower your healthcare workforce to deliver the best patient care.
View All ProductsThe suite of healthcare onboarding solutions available from HealthStream aids in nurse retention and improved patient outcomes.
View All ProductsGive your healthcare staff the decision support and skills training they need with the online products available from HealthStream.
View All ProductsHealthStream leverages medical professional development in healthcare by providing staff training programs
View All ProductsExperience standardized and centralized healthcare credentialing, privileging, and enrollment that is smarter and faster than ever before.
View All ProductsAutomated, web-based provider credentialing and enrollment software for growing medical groups.
View All ProductsNCQA-certified CVO verification services for initial and re-credentialing files in an overflow or full-service capacity for healthcare organizations.
View All ProductsSearch, review, and add providers into the Epic provider master file with our Epic app integration, Provider Validate.
View All ProductsFinally, a comprehensive resource to support collecting, storing, and sharing credentialing data with ease.
View All ProductsHealthcare scheduling software designed to optimize staffing requirements & elevate patient care
View All ProductsPrecisely align staffing and needed resources to enable efficient patient flow and high-quality, cost-effective patient care.
View All ProductsHealthStream’s free nurse schedule app, NurseGrid™, is built to help you care for your staff and engage with their specific needs.
View All ProductsMitigate risk and elevate your quality of care. Improving both clinical and business outcomes starts with a smarter, more integrated approach to regulatory training, continuing education and quality management.
Learn MoreAs the world of healthcare becomes more and more high-tech and digital, are its human resources practices keeping up? Staying analog in a digital world can slow down growth and damage retention, affecting two major areas of concern in healthcare.
Gamification, which takes many of the benefits of gaming and uses them to foster growth and development in the business world, may offer an effective, enterprise-wide solution, says Lea Sorrentino, Senior Digital Strategist at HealthStream’s partner Bunchball, a solution provider taking many of the benefits of gaming and using them to foster growth and development in the business world, including healthcare.
“Gamification strengthens communication by using the program and making it part of a company’s overall vision,” Sorrentino explains. “It’s not just the success of the program or seeing people interact with the game mechanics and getting excited. It’s more about how a company adopts gamification as part of their vision that really makes these programs successful, along with understanding that investing in their people and their emotional wellness is the success to these programs.”
Like many legacy industries, healthcare can be slow to change, particularly around proven HR programs and strategies. That’s why it’s also important to realize what gamification is not, she adds.
“Most of these programs look very different than what people would expect when they hear gamification,” she says. “I think that they think it looks like a game and that it can look trivial or silly. Often the user experience is very similar to what the employees are doing already; it’s just enhanced and then centralized.”
Enhance, not replace, performance evaluations
Management and employees must be brought to understand the ‘why’ behind gamification and see how it benefits them and makes them more productive, more engaged, better equipped to do their jobs, Sorrentino points out.
“It’s pretty rare that all of a sudden we add badges to someone’s work life and they immediately begin to say, ‘How did I ever live without badges?’ It’s more like, ‘How did I live without this recognition? How did I leave without this feedback prior to the program launching?’ That’s what really changes minds,” she says. “Many employees want to know how they’re doing. Gamification provides an ongoing assessment.”
Gamification lets an employee know if they are performing above or below the curve, and through the data from these programs, administrators, managers, and supervisors are able to get the pulse of their employees in real time. Gamification reinforces what is going right consistently, creating a more positive performance-review conversation where it’s easier to of course-correct or discuss opportunities.
“I definitely think it’s an enhancement, not a replacement, for the traditional review,” Sorrentino says. “One of the challenges about traditional performance reviews is their manual nature. When it comes to supervisor or manager interaction, it’s based off of what the manager or supervisor can see and experience. Somebody can’t be at all places at all times, so it’s a less personalized touchpoint with each of your employees.”
How does gamification improve that? By developing a program along these lines:
A gamification program captures all that information, all the time, for every employee. Managers and supervisors no longer need to do so, and HR can take a more robust role in monitoring and analyzing a much broader data set.
“Those analytics can be used in real time within the program to provide feedback,” Sorrentino says. “It’s not one-on-one but it is consistent feedback of ‘Yes you’re going in the right direction.’ As the employee, I feel much more nurtured and have much more self-awareness of my role. We’re also able to leverage those analytics to create coaching moments or touchpoints for managers and supervisors to intervene. Being able to aggregate all of that information leads to having a much more robust and clear annual or quarterly review. Additionally, all that captured data can be used in enhancing the program, seeing where people are consistently falling down or exceeding and making strategy changes.”
Lea Sorrentino is Senior Digital Strategist at Bunchball, Inc., a leading gamification solution provider and HealthStream partner, where she has worked with Fortune 500 clients across multiple industries to help them focus on supporting and maximizing consumer and employee engagement. Sorrentino has more than seven years of strategy experience servicing notable customers like Urban Outfitters, Cisco, Volkswagen, Marriott, Honeywell, FedEx, United and Cargill. She also is a multi-media artist whose work has been exhibited nationally and internationally.
This blog post is taken from a HealthStream Second Opinions Podcast that was recorded recently. To hear Lea’s full discussion, click here.
HealthStream’s learning management system and comprehensive suite of competency management tools empower your healthcare workforce to deliver the best patient care.
View All Learning & PerformanceHealthStream offers performance learning management solutions to help develop your healthcare staff into leaders and reduce turnover.
View All ProductsHealthStream works with healthcare organizations to create engaging and high-quality training videos for your staff and management.
View All ProductsImprove care quality and save money by making informed decisions about your healthcare facility and staff with HealthStream's reporting analytics solution.
View All ProductsHealthStream's proven methods for the improvement and overall engagement of your healthcare staff foster a positive workplace and increase retention rates.
View All ProductsThe leadership development program from HealthStream helps mold your high-potential healthcare employees into proven leaders.
View All ProductsWhen you enact HealthStream's quality compliance solutions, you can do so with the confidence your healthcare organization will meet all standards of care.
View All Quality & ComplianceFulfill compliance requirements with a variety of programs and courseware designed to address critical regulatory requirements as well as educate staff to recognize and mitigate risks.
View All ProductsBy increasing your healthcare staff's focus on quality and safety with HealthStream, they can help to reduce medical errors and readmission rates.
View All ProductsLearn about what HealthStream's healthcare policy management software and how it can help aid your organization efforts.
View All ProductsHealthStream's education helps address diversity, equity, and inclusion within your organization, as well as promoting health equity in the communities you serve.
View All ProductsHealthStream offers professional training and education on how to best optimize your reimbursement process within your healthcare organization.
View All ReimbursementTeach your healthcare staff about the revenue cycle and claim management through targeted training and video tools from HealthStream.
View All ProductsLearn about our advanced resuscitation training solutions. Our solutions are designed to help improve patient outcomes.
View All ResuscitationIn all areas of resuscitation, from neonatal to elderly care, clinical deterioration is a risk that can be avoided with the help of HealthStream's training programs.
View All ProductsHealthStream's EMS Program offers a comprehensive, CAPCE accredited EMS course library that meets National Registry annual recertification.
View All ProductsNurture the skills of your nurses and medical staff to help mold them into effective leaders with development training from HealthStream.
View All ProductsExpand the decision-making skills and effectiveness of your healthcare workforce with HealthStream's clinical development programs and services.
View All Clinical DevelopmentMake sure your clinicians have the support they need to provide competent care with clinical competency training and development from HealthStream.
View All ProductsHealthStream’s learning management system and comprehensive suite of competency management tools empower your healthcare workforce to deliver the best patient care.
View All ProductsThe suite of healthcare onboarding solutions available from HealthStream aids in nurse retention and improved patient outcomes.
View All ProductsGive your healthcare staff the decision support and skills training they need with the online products available from HealthStream.
View All ProductsHealthStream leverages medical professional development in healthcare by providing staff training programs
View All ProductsLearn more about HealthStream's Provider Credentialing, privileging, & enrollment solutions.
View All CredentialingExperience standardized and centralized healthcare credentialing, privileging, and enrollment that is smarter and faster than ever before.
View All ProductsAutomated, web-based provider credentialing and enrollment software for growing medical groups.
View All ProductsNCQA-certified CVO verification services for initial and re-credentialing files in an overflow or full-service capacity for healthcare organizations.
View All ProductsSearch, review, and add providers into the Epic provider master file with our Epic app integration, Provider Validate.
View All ProductsMake sure your healthcare staff can schedule out appointments and work schedules with ease using HealthStream's line of software solutions.
View All SchedulingHealthcare scheduling software designed to optimize staffing requirements & elevate patient care
View All ProductsPrecisely align staffing and needed resources to enable efficient patient flow and high-quality, cost-effective patient care.
View All ProductsHealthStream’s free nurse schedule app, NurseGrid™, is built to help you care for your staff and engage with their specific needs.
View All Products