Nearly $1 in every $5 spent in the United States by 2024 will be on healthcare-related costs.1 There is no question that this industry will be booming in the years to come; and there’s also no question that it’s changing rapidly—you need your employees to keep up to date, and your employees, especially your top employees, will demand to keep up.
If you’re a part of leadership development and training in the healthcare sector (or in any sector, really), you’ll want to seriously consider fully embracing online learning (e-learning) if you want to attract and retain top talent, and if you want to remain a competitive force within the industry. Continue reading to discover the benefits of online training for the healthcare sector, as well as some tips for properly implementing it.
May Be More Effective than Traditional Avenues of Learning
A comprehensive study commissioned by the World Health Organization concluded that e-learning for healthcare professionals is more effective than traditional methods in a lot of instances. For example, e-learning yielded higher levels of learners’ overall knowledge acquisition and skills acquisition.
Costs Less Than Traditional Avenues of Learning
Training in the healthcare sector can get pricey when you need to have skilled instructors present in a classroom setting. Printed books and other materials are also very expensive. With online courses, you can record or broadcast live video for courses, and you can distribute all materials electronically, which significantly reduces costs.
More Flexible and Can Easily be Updated
Many professionals in the healthcare sector work odd hours and shifts. With learning options hosted online, they can access their training any time or day that’s convenient for them. They don’t have to wait for a class to be hosted during regular work hours. And e-learning content is also easier to update. You don’t have to update every slide in a presentation deck when you update your training content, and you won’t have to rely on outdated textbooks.
Caters to Different Types of Learners
With e-learning, you can create and share all types of different learning content at once. You can offer videos and graphics for visual learners, quizzes and simulated experiences for more tactile learners, documents for those who learn better by absorbing reading material, and social online forums for those who learn by collaborating with others.
Provides a Central Database for Critical Resources
Above all else, at any time during their training, healthcare professionals can refer to course content they already completed if they have questions or if they forgot something important. They can retake learning modules, review written content and manuals, or ask questions on social forums at any time. They will always have real-time information available at their fingertips.
[Part 2 of this article will appear in tomorrow’s Advisor.]
- “$1 of Every $5 Spent in US Will Be on Healthcare.” Accessed 12/13/2017.