Moving to Personalized Development Plans for Healthcare Clinicians

April 1, 2021
April 1, 2021

This Post Is the First of Three That Excerpts Our Article, “Personalized Development Plans Are Essential for Healthcare Clinicians - A Q&A with Trisha Coady, Senior Vice President And General Manager Of Clinical Solutions, Healthstream.”

What is the genesis of HealthStream’s solution for clinical development?

Our Clinical Development System is based on decades of research, both our own and that of our partners. It leverages our proprietary workforce taxonomy, which is the only resource of its kind in healthcare. The system effectively allows us to connect clinicians with assessments and recommended learning across a wide breadth of options, from HealthStream’s Netflix-like model (CECenter™) to structured orientation programs from top nursing associations. Its components work together in pursuit of one goal: to optimize both business and clinical outcomes by engaging the clinician in a personalized competency and career development journey.

Why is HealthStream’s workforce taxonomy so important?

We know that competency development is dependent upon two things: the characteristics of the individual and of the learning or content itself. Although we had a number of models to pull from, healthcare really didn’t have a comprehensive taxonomy that could link all people and content in the context of workforce development. It’s been 4 years since our knowledge and subject matter expert team began this project, and we now have over 34 million possible combinations. Much like how iTunes can recommend music from the millions of songs and based on your listening history, we can recommend content based on your profession or specialty, as well as your assessment results. With as many combinations as we have, our recommendations only get more and more personalized.

What are the core components of the clinical development system?

It includes 16,000 valid knowledge questions, covering over 160 professions, specialties, and/or settings in the clinical realm. The learner will be assigned or will enroll in a smaller, randomized set of questions; based on knowledge gaps presented in the results, they can select from curated content recommendations. As well, we’ll be offering an option for their leaders to assign learning activities from those recommended. The end result is a personalized development plan where the individual can self-develop or the leader can review and assign follow up.

Future installments will address continuing education, artificial intelligence, and automation.

Download the full article here.