How We’re Promoting Continuing Education in Healthcare

Support for continuing healthcare education in an online setting

Recent years have shown that continuing medical education does not need to occur in a formal, scheduled setting. Nurses and other healthcare professionals can now earn accreditation by attending continuing professional development whenever they can, whether that’s the morning, afternoon, or night shift. It’s easier for them to perform their training when they are most awake and aware and makes it more likely they will perform well. Angela Fair and Kellie Schuerger have learned these lessons over the past few years as they have harnessed the power of Echo360 in their continuing education classes. Throughout their many years of education, they have seen it all, and have found Echo360 to be the most effective tool for healthcare professionals who need to undergo ongoing formal education. Learn more about their journey in their interview with Echo360’s Jeff Peterson.

Jeff Peterson: Welcome to EchoCast and welcome Angela Fair and Kellie Schuerger, both Nursing Professional Development Practitioners at Tower Health, which is an integrated healthcare provider based in the great state of Pennsylvania, go Phillies, that offers leading-edge healthcare and wellness services to over 2.5 million people across six hospitals, 27 urgent care facilities, and a network of over 200 clinics that provide end-to-end care along with wellness programs and public health services that try to keep people out of those places in the first place. Both Angela and Kellie are extremely credentialed healthcare professionals with a slew of degrees and certifications. We’d be here all day if I went through all those, so I’ll just keep moving on. And they’ve both been at Tower Health for between 15 and 30 years, respectively, so you can guess who’s been there longer, training the more than 14,000 team members that they work with at Tower Health across all those locations that I mentioned. They’ve been working with Echo360 for the last several years to make that training as interactive and as engaging as possible. They’re both innovators in the space as we’re going to hear in a couple of seconds. They’re great partners of Echo360, so we’re really pleased to have both Angela and Kellie on EchoCast. Welcome, guys.

Angela Fair: Thank you for having us.

Kellie Schuerger: Yes, welcome. Thank you.

Jeff: Thanks so much for sharing your work here on EchoCast, but before we get into it and all the great stuff that you’re doing at Tower Health, I’d love to have both of you share just a little bit about your own paths in healthcare. You both got started on the nursing side of things and now you find yourself in this really cool space of training and using technology and all this kind of stuff. So let’s hear a little bit of a this is your life. This is the This Is Your Life portion of EchoCast here. Angela, why don’t you go first? Tell us about your path, and then Kellie, you can jump in next.

Angela: Okay. I’ve been a nurse here at Reading for 30 years, a nurse for 36 years total. I lay my groundwork in ICU and acute hemodialysis. I left that workspace to then join the Nursing Professional Development department and I teach the Advanced Cardiac Life Support, Pediatric Advanced Life Support, and their Trauma course. I’m also very interested in our onboarding process and how to make it better. Specifically, when Covid hit and we were charged to do a totally online, virtual orientation to onboard people outside of the hospital and bring them in. That’s what brought all of our hospitals together collectively to say, okay, we’ve all got to be rowing in the right direction. Hence, I befriended Kellie as my colleague from Pottstown, and she’s my go-to for a lot of things. She’s a good egg. That’s my story.

Jeff: Kellie, how about you? How’d you find yourself in this specific line of work?

Kellie: It’s funny, but I was also in ICU. That is my background. As it came about that you had to get your bachelor’s and then I went and got my master’s and then I found myself in Professional Development and got certified in that. It’s a lovely field to be in because you get to see so many people grow and learn things. One of the things Ange definitely roped me in to help with all of the new orientation process, which honestly has been absolutely fabulous. We did work very well together. It was great to come up with our scenarios that we could put into Dojo, which was fabulous. It’s been a true pleasure to work with Ange.

Jeff: We’re going to dig into the technology here in a second, but I think for both of you coming from the frontlines of the work and now being in positions where you’re training and getting people, talk a little bit about either how easy or how challenging it was moving to the other side of the table. Did coming from the frontlines and being the recipient of training, being on the other end, where somebody’s teaching you how to do stuff, did that help as you made the transition, or have there been moments where you were just like, oh, my gosh, I’m trying to develop all these muscles and all this kind of stuff? Or has it been helpful to have that sort of empathy from the other side?

Angela: I myself, personally, grappled with leaving the bedside because I was a clinical expert in my area and I could see directly the provision of care to my patients and what effect that had. Whereas when I came into professional development, now I no longer had a patient. The patient was a little longer down the way. My target audience, then, was my future colleagues and people who were now taking care of the patient. And the way that I affected patient outcomes was to put together a good product. And most times, I was old school. Reading, writing, and all that kind of stuff. So the technology part was a little challenging for me. Insurmountable? No, not by any measure. But it was something like, oh, geez, another thing that we’re going to learn. But it was so well worth it because of the outcomes that we’ve been noticing in just the short amount of time that we’ve been using it for our orientation.

Jeff: Kellie, did you have a similar experience yourself?

Kellie: I definitely have. It was hard to leave the bedside. I do think that it’s made me more passionate, making sure that new nurses are ready for the bedside. And I can have that empathy for them and what they’re going through as they’re transitioning from school to being a bedside nurse. But it’s definitely very challenging. The computer end of it is all new for me. As a matter of fact, I can make an Excel spreadsheet now, and I don’t think anybody can believe it.

Jeff: Angela, you mentioned with the technology was another factor, obviously, that has not only weighed in on the work that both you and Kelly are doing, but it’s a pretty central part. Let’s go back now, take us back to the origin story of how you then got introduced to Echo360 in the first place, and what you’re specifically using, EchoPoll, in your training there at Tower Health.

Angela: It was June of 2021 and we were looking to—I loved the Echo360 Point, the clickers. They were using them in the schools and I was like, okay, I need to bring that to my classroom because I wanted them to be engaged, pay enough attention so that they could answer questions, and not have it stick out that, oh, no, you answered wrong. It would bring on a whole lot of dialogue when we would discuss the questions and why some choices were better. But I was limited in the kind of questions that I could ask. When we were looking to renew our agreement for the clickers, I was introduced to EchoPoll. It was more along the lines of have you heard about EchoPoll, and my colleague at that point who had just taken everything and put it into the virtual format, she says, no, show us. And when they showed it to us, we were like a kid in a candy shop. It was like, oh, you can make a hot spot. You can write in answers. Oh, my gosh, this is so cool. Immediately, we came together in the office and said, oh, my gosh, this would be so awesome to have. What kind of discussion this is going to promote? We were really excited about it. It went a few months down the way and we had this, yeah, we’re starting, no, we’re not starting. Yeah, we’re using it, no, we’re not. Then Kristin Gabriel came on board and I think it was her mission in life to say, okay. I am here for you guys. I will do what I need to do. I’m coming to visit you at your elbow and show you how to do this. She really bent over backward to make us comfortable using it. And even when she visited, some of my colleagues were just, I call them the naysayers, because they were like no. What was wrong with PowerPoint? And I’m like, you don’t get it. This has so many things that are going to open up discussion and good stuff going on in the classroom where they’re not just falling asleep. And that was the key thing. You can give information, but if they’re sleeping through it or they’re just like okay, this is just the same ol’ same ol’, you don’t capture them and I always said, to be an educator, you have to have a little bit of a gig. You have to have something that’s going to sell this. So they want to be involved. They want to be included in the discussions and things like that. But they don’t necessarily, especially in terms of orientation, they don’t want to stick their heads out and say, I’m definitely sure of this answer. But I’m going to give you my answer and if it’s right, great. I’m going to pat myself on the back. But if not, I’m going to know why maybe somebody else’s answer was better. So you offered us the opportunity to ask a variety of different questions, attach little snippets of video and that kind of thing, and a lot of media that we weren’t able to use in just plain old PowerPoint. It was awesome. Then pictures we didn’t have to pay for. And once we got going with it, it was like, oh, my gosh. I can do this. And we’re sharing decks. It was everything it was promised to be. We just hadn’t figured it out at that early time. Kellie might elaborate on the kind of feedback that we’re getting from the people who are going through our onboarding and orientation about what we’re using this for. We’re using it for other things that are going to open up, as you said, hospitals, and we’re located miles and miles away from each other. So this opens up opportunity for us to give education on any tour, day, evening, night, weekends, holidays. And it also opens up the opportunities for us to open it up for everyone, not just Reading Hospital, not just Pottstown Hospital, but all of Tower Health collectively.

Jeff: That’s fantastic. Kellie, I’d love you to talk about the learner feedback. Did you feel like it was pretty, from the learner’s standpoint, was it immediate receptivity and engagement with the technology, or did you feel there was a point at which it just clicked for everybody and all a sudden now you’ve got everybody animated and dialed up to learn? What was the learner experience like at Tower Health?

Kellie: I honestly think we kept talking up and telling everybody, and our CNO especially kept saying, you’re the last one who has to do virtual. We finally got to the point that we were using the Dojo and they were all very engaged. It is amazing because when someone was on the other end of the screen and we were just lecturing at them, it was almost like we were just talking at them. They have really enjoyed it. I have not had one complaint. We had some concerns when we first did it, like what if they can’t find this in our computer because we set it up with funny scenarios, I think. So they were engaged just by the scenario itself. But then they would have to go and see where they could find the information to be able to answer questions. It went from an 8-hour lecture day to 10-minute blurbs of being lectured at and they really enjoy it.

Jeff: That’s fantastic. So with the naysayers, and Angela, you bring them up. And being in the technology industry, there’s always going to be the early adopters and then the initial resisters. How have you seen from your colleagues, how has that—have people gotten pretty comfortable with the technology? Has this now become the mainstream in the work that Tower Health is doing in the training end of things?

Angela: Right after this podcast, I have one of my colleagues coming to put her League class into Dojo. She has got everything all made up, and it’s a matter of, if I show you how and I give you the information you need, then I’ve taught you go fish instead of just giving you something to eat. So that’s my plan after this. The naysayers, basically, it took a little time, but those are generally those folks who have this aversion to learning new things. The one is an absolute classroom. Here’s your papers. Here’s your handouts. We’re not going to do much on the board or anything like this. But we’re going to look at your handouts. So I’ve done things for her that have upped her game a little bit that have made things better. A pretest for EKG and she’s able to look to see who’s scoring where and who’s missing things. There’s a lot of great information, not only when you go through it as a class that way, but when you look at it later and say, okay, this is an area that I didn’t cover well enough. Maybe I have to go back and look at this. But the naysayers, we pretty much said, okay, get on the bus. I will help you do what you need to do. And Kellie was the same way. If we need to travel to your hospital and do this at the arm with you. If we can do it, anybody can do it. And the naysayers, literally, one of the biggest ones gave poor Kristen a run for her money, but she’s the one who’s running our orientation and has done all of the assigning, everything. She presents it now since October 10, our first go-live, and every other week, we do orientation, and she has taken to it like a duck to water. She rarely comes to me for any help or anything like that. We look forward to when we all get together to see what’s working and what’s not. But Dojo, I don’t think, is anything that we have to be concerned about not working. It’s doing what we wanted it to do, and that’s keeping our people engaged.

Jeff: And Kellie, you’ve mentioned, now that you’ve mastered Excel spreadsheets, you’re perfectly equipped to answer this technical question. In passing, Angela just said one of the things that you’re able to do using technologies like EchoPoll is to be able to go back, review information. So when I think of the type of training that you and Angela are doing—this is high-stakes training. This isn’t like teaching kids how to scoop ice cream at a Ben & Jerry’s. How do you see the technology either helping or is learning on technology in any way, is that contributing to any sort of, not cynicism, but concern, that people are going to be trained up to the level they need to be trained up to? Because you literally have lives in people’s hands? Or is the technology, like being able to go back and make sure and track performance whether it’s through word clouds or questions, has that been helpful to really, really know if the staff is learning what they’re supposed to be learning before they get out there with patient care?

Kellie: I honestly think that it does because we can see where people may be struggling. That helps because we can hone in on that on the floors. But one of the big things is, in healthcare, it’s not about what you know, but how are you going to find the answer if you don’t know. And I better find it quick. And Dojo is allowing us to teach them how to go back and find the answers that they’re going to need. Because we can ask questions and have them refer to our policy manager, have them refer to Lippincott, so that they get those skills and know where their resources are. I think that is fabulous. Plus they’re engaged so they’re not just being talked at.

Jeff: That’s fantastic. This is a little bit of a jump ball for either of you who would like to answer it. When you think ahead to what is the next chapter of training innovation at Tower Health, what’s next? It seems like you’ve taken this great leap forward and things are engaged and Angela’s going to go get somebody else trained up in a second here, but what do you see as the next evolution of training innovation there at Tower Health?

Angela: I can tell you that, like I said, after this webcast is, our lead where we teach novices to be facilitators, be leaders, on the clinical floor so that they have the right tools to use. It’s several weeks and that’s going to go in and the basic trauma course, which is a recommendation for it from the Pennsylvania Trauma Systems Foundation is also going to go in there and will be made available. We have large amounts of people that work on trauma-designated units. We’re a Level I Trauma Center. That is their basic start, and to get those people through without having to flip-flop schedules and things like that, because anywhere and everywhere, staffing is a challenge. So in order to keep these people from flip-flopping and be able to do this education on the shift that they are hired for, child care is no longer an issue. Flip-flopping and then losing sleep and having to drive and all that is no longer an issue. And it’s very much going to be satisfying for us to be able to train people on their respective shifts, at their own pace, when they need it. It’s going to be a huge boon. 

Jeff: That’s great. Kellie, since Angela took that on, I didn’t let you know there was going to be a follow-up question. So Kellie, you’re going to take this home now. On every EchoCast, we ask our guests our last question, and it’s called the Inspiration Point. Basically, it’s a question that’s around one piece of advice or one bit of learning. The one key lesson or the key takeaway based on your own experience here that we’ve heard so much about over the last few minutes. So Kellie, if you were to impart one piece of advice or one big thing that you’ve learned that you’d want to share with somebody who’s maybe in a similar position as you looking to infuse their programs with some technology, that next level of engagement, what would be the one thing you’ve learned here at Tower Health that you’d want to share with somebody else?

Kellie: I definitely think that if you want your people to be engaged, this is the way to go. As far as using Dojo itself, one of the biggest things that helps is to understand the definitions of decks versus assignments versus classes. That’s huge because if you don’t know that, you confuse yourself, and it does get very frustrating. I would say jump in with both feet and go for it because it’s been well worth it.

Jeff: That’s fantastic. I want to thank both Kellie, you and Angela for joining us here on EchoCast and for sharing your perspectives, the great examples that you’re putting into place, and the commitments you have to making sure that people—I love how you talk about the bedside and this side. The care and the concern are evident no matter what side you’re on. We’re going to let Angela and Kellie go, but everybody else stick around for a quick demonstration of some of the applications that were referenced here in this EchoCast and you can always go to Echo360.com for more episodes of EchoCast and resources to create your own inspired learning experiences.

Quality continuing education methods for continuous healthcare training

Angela and Kellie’s success is only one of countless examples of the ways the Echosystem can work for different types of organizations around the globe. Whether it’s allowing students to learn at a time and location that works best for them or keeping them engaged by breaking up lectures with interactive activities, Echo360 solutions take basic continuing education concepts and boost them to the next level. Contact us for a demo to learn more.