An industry starving for cost-effective education - Having My Say

Healthcare Purchasing News, Sept, 2002 by Greg Firestone

One of the realities of modem business is that information must be available at convenient times and places for organizations to compete effectively. Providing access to corporate information resources has become a primary driver for information technology departments throughout corporate America, and nowhere is this trend more apparent than in the healthcare industry.

Everyone in the healthcare sector requires up-to-date information, from the latest medical intelligence to new requirements promulgated by HOFA, OSHA and a number of other governmental agencies. The need for access to the latest information has provided modern information scientists with tremendous challenges and opportunities.

The need for an online corporate university

The business of healthcare has assumed greater importance over the past two decades. Previous generations of healthcare providers enjoyed an almost limitless flow of funding to support care processes. But as these processes have become more complex and expensive, funding sources have demanded greater accountability and efficiency from the industry. New approaches to managing healthcare processes have become mandatory for survival in the healthcare marketplace. Business concepts like supply chain management, statistical process control and many others now underlie much of the healthcare delivery system's efforts to improve value to consumers, but many healthcare workers have little or no experience with these concepts. An organized educational venue addressing adult learning needs could revolutionize the industry, while reducing costs and improving job satisfaction and customer satisfaction.

Cost containment

Manufacturers, in particular, must address important issues regarding costs, primarily through improvements in the supply chain. As these changes are being implemented, though, customers often may not understand the rationale behind new procedures and systems. An educational system, such as a corporate university developed under a collaborative initiative, can be especially valuable by providing both customer and vendor with easily accessed information and instruction on changes and improvements. By providing a service that enhances the supply chain, manufacturers, distributors, group purchasing organizations and consulting companies would be better able to promote systemwide improvements and ultimately remove unnecessary costs from the system.

Additionally, integrated delivery networks can efficiently train their staffs regarding changing business processes through an online environment IDN personnel could access the information from nearly anywhere, since it would be available on the Web. Managers at IDNs could track each employee's interaction with the educational content through reports and feedback sessions held online at times that minimize disruptions in work schedules.

Business concepts like enterprise resource planning have the potential to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the healthcare delivery system. Ensuring appropriate levels of resources at each health encounter has become an overarching concern of healthcare managers. The planning framework required to reach this goal can be incorporated into the online university, providing a means of bringing health system personnel up to speed quickly. An online corporate university can make this information available to employees in a manner that produces uniform understanding of concepts and plans for implementation. For example, hospitals may use a standard course offering for supply chain management and then customize elements of the course so employees better understand the company's plans for improving operations. Thus, employees will not only understand the underlying principles for a concept, but they also will have an integrated presentation of the hospital's efforts in these important business initiatives.

Knowledge repositories

A modern corporate university must serve as a knowledge repository, providing access to a broad database of information in ways that promote learning, retention and changed behavior. Most contemporary training programs provide an appropriate environment for learning, but they often lack mechanisms that promote changes in workplace behavior. Traditional programs typically involve cumbersome paper systems that--at best--provide an indexed book, but often contain only unorganized notebooks or handouts from lectures. Reviewing the information presented in these sessions requires significant effort and wasted time searching these information packets, frequently ending in failure.

Online education provides better availability, and searching electronically stored documents is much faster and easier. Computerized searches could readily identify key words or phrases in numerous documents, rather than relying on memory or slow manual searches. Increased efficiency can be translated directly into staff time saved, making electronic storage and search mechanisms an important enhancement to organizational performance.