Digital health change & training – the 5 levels of good learning and adoption

These days most digital health programmes, large or small, allow time and resources for training. At Ideal Health, we also find that there is effort being made to manage change, although this can differ from Trust to Trust and Programme to Programme.

What we do find is that training on its own is not enough. Training is one of the many tools available to prepare staff for change and achieve good levels of adoption, but it has to be complemented by strong change management.

Digital healthcare training can present a number of challenges for NHS Trusts:

• Availability of training rooms for face-to-face training
• Resources to cater for ‘just in time’ training
• Releasing staff from clinical responsibilities
• Logistical challenge of booking thousands of staff on training
• Knowledge retention and ability to practice
• Context and relevance to clinical role

These challenges mean that Trusts often prefer to go down a hybrid approach blending e-learning and face-to-face learning. To achieve high levels of adoption, we need more than just a training programme. Training needs to be paired with a Change Management Programme.

Ideal Health propose the following five levels of good learning and adoption:

Level one: Classroom Training – Traditional classroom training allows staff to take time out of their clinical duties to dedicate themselves to training. In a classroom, they can learn alongside their peers and have the opportunity to ask contextualised questions, to help anchor the new ways of working. This is also an opportunity for the trainer to check that staff are keeping up and to identify those that need additional support.

Level two: Classroom Training with E-learning – At this level, Trusts can look at how they can modularise some of the content and remove the need to attend in person for all learning. E-learning can be used to replace or prepare for classroom training and allows refresher learning, as it can be repeated prior to go-live. New tools, including contextualised simulated learning and gamification, allow e-learning to be a lot more interactive and promote a more engaged way of learning, as well as reinforcing ability.

Level 3: Classroom Training & E-learning with Communications – This level includes classroom and e-learning training complemented by the basics of change management: communicating with staff about the changes ahead. Explaining the vision, case for change and the “what’s in it for me” to drive the “desire” for the change at a personal level. Ultimately good communications and strong engagement support a smoother training delivery, as staff arrive at training already prepared for it.

Level 4: Classroom Training & E-learning with Communications and Change Interventions – This level moves the change management scope wider than communications by using tools such as a change network, which can be used to gather and share information about the change. A network used to its full potential acts as two-way communication – finding out and feeding back on people’s concerns and areas of resistance, and contextualising the changes to each department. This allows the change team to tailor the change interventions to the needs of the specific individuals and teams, creating a more agile continuous improvement approach.

Level 5: Classroom Training & E-learning with Communications, Change Interventions and Operational Ownership – At this level operational ownership is added as a key part of the Change Management approach. In our experience at Ideal Health, this is where we see an excellent leader or key sponsors at every level of the organisation, starting from the top, driving that cultural change. It means that everyone is aware and feels supported through the change. This helps to achieve those good levels of adoption.

Ideal Health’s Approach

Training is a pivotal part of being able to drive adoption and realise benefits, whether related to patient safety, patient experience, staff effectiveness, staff engagement, or return on the technology investment.

Ideal Health use the ADKAR methodology to help individuals move through the five stages of awareness, desire, knowledge, ability, and reinforcement, using tools and measurement methods as below:

The Seven Key Drivers of Successful Change

Ideal Health’s approach to change management focuses on the seven key drivers of successful change, with Sponsorship and Leadership being the most important. We can support Trusts to deliver these throughout the lifecycle of a programme.

Coupled with extensive experience of delivering complex training programmes, Ideal Health is the perfect digital health partner to support you with your learning and adoption programme.

More information on how change management enhances training and drives adoption can be found in our HTN Webinar. Click here to see the full session.