Using HealthStream Customer Data to Reconfigure Mandatory Training: Living Labs

April 1, 2021
April 1, 2021

It’s not often that we get to turn the vision for healthcare improvement into reality, but that’s exactly what HealthStream’s Living Labs is doing. From reengineering how annual training is delivered and identifying rising nurse leaders, to innovating how we care for our aging population, HealthStream partners with our customers to understand and tackle some of healthcare’s biggest challenges.

In this episode, we spoke to Richard Galentino, Ed.D., Vice President, Professional Development Pathways & Living Labs, HealthStream who heads up the Living Labs program. Hear Richard explain why HealthStream decided to undertake these ambitious projects and how some of the findings are leading to real transformation in the practice of healthcare.

Below is an edited excerpt from the recording with HealthStream’s Brad Weeks, our host:

Brad Weeks:

Can you tell us about a specific Living Lab that you’ve conducted and what particular business problem that project was intended to solve?

Dr. Richard Galentino:         

A couple of years ago we started a Living Lab with Bon Secours Health System. The chief learning officer and clinical officers there wanted to look at the most efficient and effective way to deliver annual mandatory training. So they had devised a three-year triennial program. They saw this as a way to ensure that everybody met the requirements by Joint Commission but also saved a lot of time on things that were done on an annual basis prior and really folks who already had knowledge on those areas. In the Living Lab, we were able to test folks throughout the system and see that they indeed had been skilled up in those areas.

Brad Weeks:

What did you discover specifically about the time savings?

Dr. Richard Galentino:         

You could certainly see that over a three-year period, millions of dollars were saved by the program becoming more efficient and being allocated based on need rather than just an annual sequence.

Brad Weeks:                                     

So rather than sticking with an annual sequence of training, what this discovered is on one level we could save a lot of time by delivering only the most efficient training and the most effective training needed based upon their current skill set.

Dr. Richard Galentino:         

Correct. Basically they devised a program that would take the learning needs and map them out over a three-year process. So it sort of had a focused effort in each year to meet the needs that they wanted to accomplish but not just sort of shotgun all education now on an annual basis. Then you could have tests or assessments in the process to ensure that all learners are getting what they needed. There were some exceptions made. For example new hires received a full set of training in the first year. So it’s a very thoughtful approach on how to do education and training.

Brad Weeks:                                     

How will the customer use that information in the future? Not just within the scope of the project itself but just in terms of how it makes decisions and allocates resources. I would think that it would have a pretty strong impact on how they think about training in the future.

Dr. Richard Galentino:         

What we are trying to do at HealthStream and what we are seeing our customers do is really think about a pinpointed approach to learning, in which learners get what they need at the interval of time when they need it, rather than just on an annual basis.

Listen to the full podcast here.