The Future of Healthcare Training Will Be Customized and Efficient

April 1, 2021
April 1, 2021

HealthStream’s Second Opinions Podcast series features industry experts and leaders and their take on issues impacting healthcare today and tomorrow.

Our third installment is an interview with Normand Desmarais, chairman and founding partner of Tier 1 Performance Solutions and Xcelerated Learning Dynamics, Inc., a HealthStream partner. An adult learning expert, Norm discusses research on a type of learning where students are trained only on what they don't already know—a concept known as personalized learning. He also shares his insights into how learning must evolve to meet the pace of innovation and change in healthcare.

Below is an edited excerpt from the recording with HealthStream’s Brad Weeks, our host:

Brad:

What can we ascertain for changes to learning dynamics, particularly again, in the healthcare environment, in the next say five years?

Norm:

The world is moving in an extremely fast pace right now, towards data collection, analysis, and insights to help us deliver efficiency and fluidity into the learning environment. Learning has got to be accessible through multiple modalities, again, as opposed to [just] an individual going to training. Training has got to be delivered to people where people can absorb it at the time when they want. Training education [also] needs to be in context. Learners, when they receive that information, need to have the context of what this training education is about in terms of the way they fit into their world and the way they fit into their job. Training education in the next five years also has to be very digestible.

We are all overwhelmed with information; we want to digest it when we’re ready to digest it. Learning needs to be fun, [which is necessary because] you want to get the engagement. Well let’s make it so it is, and I use the word fun that can be replaced with just about anything. It needs to be something where the individual receives satisfaction out of something. So let’s go back to the personalized learning. If I already know something, I’m not going to get a lot of satisfaction out of [returning to] it. I just took some of my time to attempt to learn something, but I already knew that. It needs to be something which I didn’t already know or something I can build upon what I knew in the past and adds more value to me.

If you look across all the digital media outlets, they have taken their information and segmented it into many more pieces today. You as a user get to dictate what types of information flows down to you, so you’re already filtered that. So, the point is about getting this control to the user to be able to dictate what education training they get, in the context that they want. I believe you’re going to be seeing a lot more of that in the next five years; the reasons are because we’re collecting data. I’m talking about analysis, observations, assessment of individuals, or individuals like you.

Listen to the full length podcast here.