Until a decade ago, the primary means of training physicians and future physicians, either in medical schools or for Continuing Medical Education (CME) of practicing professionals, was via face-to-face training. However, two factors made that training model unsustainable:

  • Advances in digital training technologies, and
  • The rapid pace of development in medical sciences

These two drivers have led to more healthcare facilities that employ physicians, be they large institutions, hospitals, laboratories or small-to-medium independent practices, to turn to Learning Management Systems (LMSs).

BEYOND PHYSICIAN EDUCATION

The central objective of physician-centric LMSs is to equip medical staff, including nurses, doctors, and physicians, with the most appropriate knowledge and skills required to deliver highly effective patient care. However, the right LMS can go beyond just delivering quality training and education:

Improved talent management: A physicians’ talent is likely the most important asset in any healthcare providing facility. By enabling institutions to better organize and deliver training to physicians, LMS’s help in better management of that talent pool

Rapid deployment of updated training content: Updates to health sciences occur frequently. An LMS can aid in pushing out frequently updated content to physicians, so they are always on the cutting-edge of learning in their fields

Reduced training costs: The fact that most LMS-supported training is internet/intranet-based, means healthcare institutions and practice managers save a lot of training-related costs (fewer trainers, less travel, lodging, and logistics cost, etc.)

Better learner progress tracking: Healthcare is a highly regulated environment, where physicians must formally train to deliver specific services or procedures. LMSs can offer hospital administrators valuable insight into a physician’s readiness to deliver care to specific patients by automatically tracking the progress and performance of training courses

Training standardization: Many health care institutions and private practices impose unique Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and best practices on their physicians. Most LMS’s allow training customization to the standards of those SOPs/practices so there is consistency in training delivery

Training flexibility: Physicians are typically on a continually rotating roster, which makes it difficult for them to attend “scheduled” (9.00 AM to 5.00 PM) training. By supporting mobile learning and training-on-demand, LMS’s can deliver flexibility to a training program

Depending on the type of LMS used, there could be additional benefits for any healthcare service provider. For instance, if hospital administrators and physician-owners choose a cloud-based Software-as-s-Service (SaaS) LMS for their institutions, there are fewer in-house infrastructure requirements, and less ongoing maintenance hassles to contend with.

BEYOND CONTENT: Features & Functionality

Content is likely a very important component of any educational tool. To get the best value proposition out of your physician education LMS however, you need to look beyond content. Here are some features and functionality that you should consider:

  • Course and Learner administration: Where a healthcare practice employs many physicians (10+), it is vital to have LMS administration features that can quickly enroll learners into a roster of CME courses, and effectively monitor and track their progress. The tool must provide Course administrators the ability to quickly add or update courses and curriculum, and deliver customized reminders, “gentle” encouragement and feedback (both negative and positive) to learners
  • Custom learning paths: Even though two physicians might be qualified in the same discipline (for instance, palliative care), their experience profiles might be different. Each may, therefore, require the LMS to suggest unique learning paths in order to deliver institution-specific healthcare to patients
  • Learning analytics: A significant value from using an LMS comes from the ability not of just delivering content, but of analyzing how, when, where and to what degree of effectiveness physicians consume that content. An LMS that’s supported by a strong suite of analytics tools helps training administrators make learning fun and efficient
  • Engaging content: Healthcare is probably one of the biggest beneficiaries of immersive training. The LMS you select must support physician training using technologies such as Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and 3D imagery and modeling. Some LMS tools may also allow you to add real-life scenario-based training using VR and AR features
  • Other training approaches: Gamification and Role-Playing are two additional technologies that your LMS must support. Check that your LMS also supports Simulation training. Along with games and role-based content, simulation is a great way to train physicians using the “learn by doing” approach
  • Compliance and certification: Physician’s practices have a high degree of compliance and certification/re-certification associated with them. It is vital therefore to choose an LMS that has compliance management features embedded in it. Your LMS must also support integration with external APIs/data brokers, including ACCME and CE Broker to facilitate automatic compliance and certification reporting to healthcare regulatory and medical professional bodies
  • Blended training: Some medical training lends itself to web-based training approaches, while others are best-taught face-to-face. Your LMS must allow support for both these training approaches. Features such as video-conferencing and online webinars are also important to consider when selecting the right LMS for busy hospital staff and physician practitioners
  • Social learning: Many medical practitioners learn through peer contact and social interactions. If you want to integrate formal training with informal learning, then you need to ensure your LMS supports collaborative and social learning features.
  • Privacy and security: Physicians are custodians of extremely private and personal data on their patients. Even during training, especially in socially-engineered training settings or when studying unique case studies, healthcare professionals might share and discuss such data to ensure better learning outcomes. To keep that data safe and secure, your LMS must supports HIPAA, secure email, HTTPS, FTPS, and FDA CFR Part 11 protocols

While physicians are not technology-shy, you cannot expect them to provide tech support for their learning systems either. It is therefore important that your LMS provider offers 24×7 support on all critical components of the system. Ideally, if your institution has teams of doctors across time zones, the LMS vendor must provide coverage across those geographical boundaries too.

A final word of caution on creating the most effective LMS for your learners: You may not find all the above features in any single platform. You should, therefore, be open to implementing a multi-platform physician education that delivers most, if not all, of the functionality discussed here. An LMS solution that’s SCORM-compliant (Sharable Content Object Reference Model) will help you achieve that objective.

THINKING BEYOND LMS: The realm of LXPs

While SCORM-compliant LMS’s allow you to “integrate” other medical training modules and solutions into your training strategy, in due course, you might want to take physician education to the next level. You can do so by implementing a Learner Experience Platform (LXP). Unlike extending LMS capability through add-ons and APIs, LXPs create open, personalized, adaptive learning environments by delivering enhanced resource aggregation and curation abilities. They

  • Allow learners to discover content that would otherwise not be available within a healthcare providers training catalog
  • Lend themselves well to skills-mapping and training needs analysis
  • Are exceptional at content indexing, which makes unique, curated learning a real possibility
  • Like YouTube and Netflix, the LXP’s have a very user-friendly interface and can recommend external (and additional) content based on usage analytics and consumption patterns

For instance, physicians using an LXP as their learning tool, and going through a course on Senior Palliative Care, may also receive recommendations for additional material on Pediatric Palliative Care. The platform may also encourage physicians to peruse content on empathy, physician-patient communication skills or the physicians role in end-of-life care.

LMSs are typically top-down, push-driven, where the system serves content to a physician learner. With LXPs, learning is more autonomous and learner-driven. This AI-driven environment also lends itself ideal for peer-focused learning, because it enables learner-to-learner (including groups) engagement, and encourages learner-produced content.