Imagine this hypothetical situation: if you had to choose between two heart surgeons, both of whom had passed their Board exams, but one had achieved the minimum passing score and the other had scored 99%, which one would you choose? 

Healthcare professionals all have the same goals: do what’s best for the patient and optimize patient care. But globally, iatrogenesis — the unintended adverse effects of medical intervention on patients — is a problem. So how do healthcare professionals produce better outcomes — and reduce iatrogenic effects — across the board? 

Microlearning is an e-learning approach that breaks lessons into smaller chunks in order to make the training feel more manageable. Because of this, microlearning may seem like an attractive choice for an e-learning training solution for healthcare staff working under time pressure.

Researchers and physicians at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women's Hospital, and NEJM Group conducted a survey study to determine user experiences with an adaptive learning platform and the impact on first-time American Board of Internal Medicine Certifying Examination (ABIM-CE) test takers.  The study was published in AMEE MedEd Publish, an open access online journal for medical and health-care professionals.   

The survey study examines the NEJM Knowledge+ adaptive learning platform, which we co-developed with NEJM Group, and found that the majority of respondents rated the platform as helpful and the content as good or excellent for exam preparation and relevant to their learning needs. The study also found that a significantly higher proportion of users reported passing the ABIM-CE on their first attempt compared to the national average (95 percent vs. 89 percent).

Unconscious incompetence is when you don’t know that you don’t know. You think you are doing one aspect of your job correctly when you actually aren’t. Our data shows that employees can be 15-40% unconsciously incompetent in critical aspects of their job. It’s a problem that hits every industry and affects efficiency and productivity everywhere. But in certain sectors, unconscious incompetence can be even more harmful — healthcare is one of these. 

The point of medical training is to identify and close skill or professional practice gaps. And because of new technological developments or new research, there’s always a skill gap. Those skill gaps are the difference between what a clinician is doing versus what they should be doing. But there are easy solutions. 

Every workday in healthcare is unpredictable. There never seems to be enough time in the day and every moment needs to be used as efficiently as possible. With days already filled to bursting, it seems like there’s no time for training. 

To train employees and external stakeholders in healthcare at the same time is no small feat.

For years, the aviation industry has used AQP to train pilots and flight instructors, with exceptional results: even though air traffic has increased, the number of accidents continues to decrease. But just as the industry continues to innovate and evolve, so too must the tools and methods of training, in order to keep pilots, crews, and passengers safe in the skies.

When an airline needs to train, you know it’s no small undertaking. From flight operations, to airport and network operations, a large airline has to train thousands of employees. The obvious choice for training on this scale is to utilize online training.

We are delighted to announce that Training Industry has named Area9 to its 2018 Top 20 list of Training Delivery companies, building on our 2017 award. Training Industry is the leading global resource for training professionals responsible for improving business performance.

In the age of social media, when companies can be held accountable at the click of a button, employees’ relationship with the public needs to be courteous and professional at all times.