Learning Is Not Just for the Classroom

Aired on: Wednesday, Feb 24, 2021

314e at HLS Symposium 2022 | 314e Corporation

This is 314e’s College Live Session/webinar in association with CHIME, this webinar explains:

  • The need for a performance support strategy to improve EHR training
  • What learners want from their performance support program
  • The critical features of a performance support solution you should consider if you plan to implement one!
Ryan Seratt

Speaker: Ryan Seratt
Director – Training and Development at 314e Corporation

Ryan has over 20 years of experience creating training programs and leading change for organizations in the telecom, finance, retail, and healthcare industries.

Here is the transcript of the webinar

Aaron Waggoner:
Hello, and good afternoon. My name is Aaron Waggoner, foundation specialist with corporate partner services for Chime and it's my pleasure to welcome you all to today's webinar. Learning is not just for the classroom: Improve EHR training with a performance support strategy. Now with that said, I'm pleased to introduce the speaker for today. With us today is Ryan Seratt, Director of Training and Development with 314e Corporation. Ryan, thank you for joining us today, I'm going to turn things over to you.


Ryan Seratt:
Thank you, Aaron. And thank you, everyone, for joining us today, we appreciate the time and have in your attendance. So a little bit about myself. So as Aaron said, my name is Ryan Seratt, I'm the Director of Training for 314e. And I've spent my life working on learning programs, and designing those. I'm very excited to talk to you today about performance support strategy. Performance support is, is often a part of training that's overlooked. And I think that with COVID, and with the way that we've had to react to COVID, that's really coming to the forefront of a way that we can improve training, and improve the learning experience for our staff. So let's go ahead and start off with today's, in, today's agenda, so we'll do some introductions about 314e. We'll talk about the need for a performance support strategy. Then talk a little bit about what learners want from a performance support strategy. And then at the end, we'll review some of the critical features that you need to consider if you're going to implement a performance support solution. So about 314e, so we were, we were established in 2004 as a staffing and services IT organization, we're headquartered in San Francisco, we're organically grown, which means that we're able to focus on our customers' needs, without shareholders. The word, we have a lot of industry partners and affiliates, such as Chime, Microsoft, Snowflake Tableau, and we're a certified Minority Business Enterprise. So we currently are working have worked with over 250 customers nationwide, we're very focused on as all aspects of IT, whether that's EHR, whether it's data and analytics, or payer services. My particular part of the organization we're very concerned about learning and e-learning is a topic that we've been working with clients on, we do a lot of conversion of instructor-led training to e-learning. We work with our clients on maintenance and upgrades, and performance support, which we're here to talk about today. Our team also does e-learning, staff augmentation, multimedia development, and blended learning strategies. So in the chat, if you can just type in which of these best describes you? How familiar are you with the concept of performance support tools? So in the chat, if you could type in A, B, or a C?


Ryan Seratt:
Got a B and an A, another a? Few A's popping up? Okay. Great. Okay, looks like looks like predominantly A's and B's now very familiar and somewhat familiar? Well, by the end of this, hopefully, we'll get you into that very familiar category with Barrett. So what is performance support. So, performance support is a learning approach that makes content available to learners as they perform the job. It's a in the flow of work supports strategy. Performance support really consists of three things in my mind when you talk about it. You've got to have the right content to support people, when they're having a problem. It's got to be in the right format for them to consume easily in their moment of need. And you've got to have the right technology to deliver it. Those three things work together to really develop a well-thought-out and well-implemented or implemented learner support program. And that's going to really drive performance and continuous improvement. So when would people actually use performance support? So new staff is, is an obvious group, is when people leave the classroom, they were they learned quite a bit, we know that the information that they've learned is very fast. Some of them feel overwhelmed when they're coming out of class, and they need that extra support when they're applying their knowledge for the first time. So new staff members will often look up information, and when they're actually performing the tasks that they've been trained to sew. And when we're talking about go-lives, go-lives usually are kind of in this category of new staff applying things for the first time, even though they might have been existing already. So that elbow to elbow support is very critical in the learning experience. Well, once you go past Go-live, and you go past the resources for that elbow to elbow support, having a system in place, and a strategy in place where that elbow to elbow support is digital, where people can pull that information to themselves in their moment of need is critical. So existing staff also uses it. So especially during upgrades, we know that software upgrades and the amount of information that's coming out during those is it's very critical for our staff to stay up to date on those changes, to really take advantage of what we're what we're providing with, EHRs and as they're changing, and they're able to do more and more. It's also important for support staff. So how do you know what the existing process looks like? How what's their current workflow in a particular area, can they can also use these performance support tools to see exactly what's been documented, what's out there, and they can pull that to themselves also. So one thing that's as we're talking about performance support, the 70-20-10 rule comes up. And some of you might have heard about that, there was some research done. And it was in the, in the late 1990s, about from the center of Creative Leadership. And what it showed is that 70% of students learn from hands-on experience, 20% they learn from other people, and 10% from their formal training. And we spend so much time focusing on that 10% of formal training, what do we do about the other 70%. So that's what performance support, that's how it comes in and it supports people in that effort. There's been some more modern research done by the training industry, and trainingIndustry.com suggests that it's about 50% or 56% on the job. But that's still a huge amount of training, that where we need to reinforce what people are learning. So when they actually are stumbling, how are they actually consuming information? And is there information for them to consume?


Ryan Seratt:
So let's talk a little bit more about the problem that we're facing with learning today. And in particularly in the classroom, is that we know our EHR is are getting more and more complicated, that every, every couple months, new items are added, new features are added. And it's hard for people to keep up on that. And I think one thing that is really close to everyone's heart, is what that's doing with our physicians. So nearly 70% of physicians are suffering stress-related issues due to health IT use. So as the systems are getting more and more complex, people are being required to do more and more and to know more and more. At the same time, the classroom or the formal training that we were talking about, those times have generally been reduced. So I've got more information that I need to teach people in a shorter amount of time. And really what that does is it raises the cognitive load on the students, they can only remember a certain amount of information in there. And when they walk out of the classroom, that really our goal is to make sure that they know everything that they need to to succeed. But the reality is, is that they are not going to retain all of that information. So retaining information is the key in training. It's not presenting information. So what do students retain when they leave the classroom? And this is the forgetting curve. And this was done by a German psychologist who actually measured how long do you remember things in your short-term memory. And through his tests, what he found is that you forget as much as 42%, after three days if you don't use it. So what that means is by the weekend, you're gonna forget 40% of what we've covered today. That's just the reality of it. So and moving things from our short term to our long term, memory is imperative. Our brains are wired to forget information that's not needed. And that's the way we're actually built. So how do you get people to remember the information that is needed? Well, part of that, if you look at the graphic, is by reviewing that information. So you can see that after one day, if the information is reviewed, then I retain much more, I go back to where I was at, when I kind of left the classroom, and then that curve tapers off, it's not as steep of an angle down. If I review three days later, the information, then that curve, once again, starts flattening out, I remember more. And I remember it for longer. As I, if I'm using the information, it starts moving from my short-term to my long-term memory. And but having those review periods are critical to that. So when after the training class, after the event, how do we support people, a lot of it is going to be peer to peer. And as we were talking about the social learning, but there's a lot of, we'll talk about student preferences, how do I help myself? How can I review information myself? So let's take a look at the modern learner. And, another poll question for you. How easy is it for your staff to find your learning content? So after the initial event, how easy is it for them to find information on their own, once they've left the training room? Okay, we got some Es and some Ds, and Es and Ds seem to be the predominant votes in there. Got a B in there. So looks like the responses are pretty strongly in the D and E category. So it could be improved, and not very easy. So this is definitely an area where we can support people more. So let's talk about the modern learner. And so I love this quote, a modern learner is someone who is in an environment where constant changes are where content changes fast, and learning needs to change even faster. Modern learners want answers right away and rely on a wide variety of sources to find the answer. In other words, almost everyone today is a modern learner.


Ryan Seratt:
And that's my Crystal Kadakia and she's the author. And she's spoken at TED several times. So when we talk about modern learners, then the first thing that every piece of literature that you're going to see on the modern learner, millennial learners, the digital natives is that they are overwhelmed by information. And being overwhelmed by information. I think that that's something that we can all relate to. And if you ask my daughter, what I do for a living, she says that I read email and I take conference calls. And I think that that's something that everyone can relate to going through the information that's coming in, is it takes up a large part of our days and a large part of our attention, just being overwhelmed that people prefer self-service. And you're seeing this more and more. We have entry kiosks where some of our patients are checking themselves in. We're seeing it in fast food, we're seeing it online where people can actually help themselves. And they really like being able to do that. I like being able to do that. I like being able to get all my banking information, without calling someone up. I've been able to do things myself when I need to do them without involving other people, in that service. So I think the next one's also pretty interesting. 93% of people prefer to learn on the job. 93% of people prefer to learn on the job, and as a trainer, I've heard this my entire life is we're in the classroom, and someone, someone doesn't seem to be getting it. But what they'll tell me is, you know what, as soon as I start doing it, I'll get it. Don't worry about it. I just need to get my hands on it and I'll be good. So 93% of people prefer to learn on the job? Okay, top three learning considerations, what do people really want from a learning program, quality of content, ease of use, and navigation. And they want their, their training to be relevant and timely. So those are the top three learning considerations. Modern learner, say 68%, say that training and develop and development is the company's most important policy. That's a large percentage, and 40% of employees with poor training will leave the company in the first year. So interesting statistics on training and the Marvin learners. So what does that mean? Well, let's take a look at some of the other preferences. And then and then we'll dive into performance support, and how to actually develop that, and some of the key factors. So one thing is that video is quickly becoming the medium of choice. So in 2022, to 82% of all internet, consumer traffic is going to be video 82% employees are 75% more likely to watch a video than read a document, or an email, or a web article. That's huge. So 75% more likely to watch a video than to read a tip sheet that I've sent out that and that's something that our organizations may or may not be taken advantage of. That short four-minute microlearning videos are preferred. So you might have heard that the human attention span is less than a goldfish, that's not true. Okay, we have more than a nine-second attention span, about four minutes is the right span in there. So some videos can be longer. But if they're longer, they really need to be one consistent idea. We'll talk about that a little bit as we talk about what the material should look like. But four minutes seems to be the golden area. So also, we can't forget about written content, even though video is quickly becoming that preferred medium. A lot of people still like written content, and it still has a place in a performance improvement strategy. So this, and I'm very curious about this. So how many people on this call, have video as part of your learning strategy? Is it under 25? 25 To 50? 50 To 75? over 75?


Ryan Seratt:
Wow, looks like very strongly A, that's been my experience also. Thank you, thank you for answering that. So with video being very, very popular, something we might want to consider adding to our learning strategy in a more pronounced way. So success factors. Okay. So as we jump into success factors, I have another question for you. So are you currently considering implementing or enhancing your performance support? is it part of your three to five-year learning strategy? Can you have some strongly considering it? It's definitely part of the plan.


Ryan Seratt:
Thinking about it. Fantastic. Got some Ds in there, it's definitely part of the plan, and people are strongly considering it.


Ryan Seratt:
That's wonderful. I think that you know, especially in the COVID world, it really has brought to light. We know that a lot of times when we're presenting information, on video calls on zoom calls, that it's not the optimum way to present that information. And this is another way that I can strengthen my learning my learning strategy and support for those learners outside of the classroom.


Ryan Seratt:
All right. So these are my top five things to consider when you're thinking about implementing a performance support strategy. So it's all about the resources, the resources must be easy to access, and it really needs to be a combination of videos and documents. Different people have different different different preferences. And so what do we mean by that it needs to be easy to access. So people will, when they're actually experiencing an issue, they're going to find a way to find the, the information, what's the easiest way that they can find it, if it becomes too difficult, they're not going to go and do as much research. So and they'll actually make a decision. As long as it's not detrimental, obviously, to the patient's safety issue, people are going to slow down. But if I, if I'm not sure exactly how to do something, I'll make my best guess. If I, if I can't find that information readily. So it's going to be easy to access. So if I need to sign in to another system, that's outside of EHR, that's going to put a barrier in the way if, if, for example, that the information is not kept in the same place, do you have the capability to store videos and documents in the same place, or do I have to go to two different places to look for those, if that's the case, then the learners not going to do that, they'll pick one or the other or pick neither. So the information needs to be in the same place, there can't be any additional logins. And it can't be too many clicks away from where I'm working, it's better if it's in the tool that I'm working, I have a way to access it there, that can actually provide a lot of benefit to us. So for example, if you use Epic Learning Homes dashboard, is a way to kind of gather some of those information. Although it doesn't store videos and documents, it just links to them. But that learning homes dashboard is, is kind of a great way to access some of those other areas and bring people together. So it can't be too far away, it's got to be easy for me to access. The second thing that's really important is that searches must produce results. So over and over again, this is something that comes into play, is the library of your content needs to be complete, and needs to produce results for people. So if you adopt a, a performance improvement strategy, it needs to launch as a fully functional, stood-up repository of information. So if for example, you only have half the information in there, and someone goes and they look at it, and they pull results, and they don't find the result, they might come back again, if you're lucky. And if they don't find anything the second time, they will never use that tool. Again, it doesn't work, you can't find what you need. I tried it once, but it wasn't for me. So it's kind of that first impression. So when you launch a performance support tool, that it needs to provide results to people when they get in there. So it's got to be completely realized before you launch it. Or you're gonna have to, as you redo it, you'll have to launch a big marketing campaign, fresh under new ownership, new and improved, etc. And, you know, put, put some information on lunch rooms, in the break rooms to talk about how you've improved it. So if you've launched, and you'll and you haven't had that, you'll know exactly what I mean, people will not use it if it's not productive after one or two searches. So the content also must be easy to use in the moment of need. So this is a mistake that I've seen a lot of organizations make also, is they take a learning manual, and they'll put their learning manual up on the web. So that's not easy to consume in the moment of need. The same thing is if you actually print out the handbook in class, people put it on the shelf and rarely open it. So just because there's so much information in there that they can't find exactly what they want, when they, when they want it. So I think you know, a really good example and some of you're probably thinking about this is how do we learn things outside of the classroom.


Ryan Seratt:
And if you've got an, if you've got an idea, just type it into the chat area. So if you need to learn something outside of work outside of the classroom, where do you go in your personal life? Is there one place that stands out?


Ryan Seratt:
Google? YouTube? And that's exactly it. So and actually it was, it was kind of interesting. A release of top training tools came out Google and YouTube were in the top three. So out of all the training tools in existence, the authoring tools for E-learning, Learning Management Systems. And out of all of that, YouTube and Google came up in the top three, depending on if for both business and for personal use, and YouTube. And going back to what we were talking about with the video is a great example of how I learnt in the moment of need for, for some performance support. So I actually busted out some drywall, and I had to fix it. And where did I go, I went to YouTube, I watched a three-minute video, and then I was able to complete my drywall. So those tools show us the model of success. And if we're using those in our personal life, why when we want to use those in our business life also. So we're having business tools that mimic that success is something is a way to take your training to the next level. So information must be easy to maintain. So this actually isn't for the learner, this is actually for your training departments. So the information must be easy to maintain. So what I mean by that is, so for example, if going back to learning homes dashboard in Epic, that, that Epic can link to the different areas. So it's inside the tool, so it can link to both videos and documents. And by going to the learning homes dashboard, it'll give me the results, because they'll be printed right on the screen. It's like a jump page, or a hyperlink page if you're not using Epic and not familiar with it. So it's easy to use in the moment of need. But is it easy to maintain? So the training department has to go in there and maintain those links for each of the roles that you have in the organization. So depending on my security, my Epic security, I'll get to a page, but all the links on that page need to be maintained. And if it's going to be complete, there could be a lot of links, then I have to store information over on SharePoint for documents. And maybe I have a, a private YouTube channel that we use internally, that I can pull videos from. If about, we get interested in security concerns, if we're using YouTube, but maybe I have a video server that I'm pulling from, or I haven't a way to store that video. So, the, because if the information is outdated, that's just as bad as having no information at all. So what you want to make sure that you're doing is you're providing the strategy is how do we make information easy to maintain. So for example, we just talked about videos. So maybe what I, one of my ideas is that I want to make videos of each of the workflows that then I can put into a place where people can pull from, well, now I have to maintain those videos. So is it part of my strategy that I'm going to do you know, are those videos part of a virtual training that I'm going to kind of cut up and make smaller videos and put them in where someone can pull them from it, when I do e-learning or my e-learning simulation-based. And I can pull those simulations, the demonstrations from their simulations, and make small micro learnings out of them to then populate my performance support tool. So finding ways to reuse your content, use it more than once is a great way to ease the maintenance. So you're not just creating assets, assets, just for your performance support strategy.


Ryan Seratt:
I think that's one of the keys is having a performance support strategy. And being able to maintain it, making sure that it's current is critical. And also strong reporting. So who is accessing what information so after a class, our students accessing a certain, certain video, or a certain document, does that that can actually inform my classroom presentation where we need to go back and actually add more or do more exercises around a certain topic. So it can actually give me information on what I need to do better. So also after a release, are people looking at specific information, so and looking at what people are looking at and who's looking at it can really give you a lot of information about the information they're retaining as they're coming out of class. Also, it, what's important is that you can use that same strategy and I would highly recommend using Video for upgrading. So as, as your EHR constantly changes, video is a great way to put out information. And you can use your performance support area to disseminate that. So you can put a link to what's new, or what's coming out. And in three weeks, you'll see this change and put the video out. So people are familiar with it. And when it comes time for the upgrade, they can go back and they can access it and take a look at it. So I actually launched a performance support tool, and during a major upgrade, and we were sitting down, and this was seven weeks after the Go-live. So we were sitting around and discussing what went well and, and saw our learnings from that. And then we were talking about turning down the tool, because we were just going to use it for the upgrade. And seven weeks after an upgrade. We figured everyone at that point in time had either, you know, learned what they needed to, they've asked other people they've been returned from vacation. And so we didn't think anyone was using it. But one person asked Is anyone using it, and we pulled it up. And it was 800 employees. So it's just in revenue cycle, that we use this and it was in a pilot, and out of 800 employees that this the tool was being accessed 200 times a week. That means that we were at that we were answering 200 questions, by having a performance support tool that would have had to gone to the Help Desk would have gone to another person would have had to go gone to informatics or would have never been answered, about we're answering 200 of those a week. So and that was a pretty surprising, pretty surprising result to me. But people are going back to refresh themselves. And that's exactly the point of a performance support tool. Alright, so we want to make sure that we have plenty of time to answer your questions. So let's move into the q&a portion of the conversation. Aaron, do we have questions?


Aaron Waggoner:
Great. Yep. Thank you, Ryan. So I just want to remind everyone, if you have any questions, go ahead and either type them in the chat or into the q&a box, I will be sure to ask the questions on your behalf. Also, too, if you're shy for the session, and you or you think about the question after we close the session, there is an option for you to type in questions and comments in the evaluation that will pop up post-event. So let's get started with what I've got here so far. So first question I've got this come through Brian is would you suggest a performance support approach for instructor-led training, as well as an e-learning-based approach?


Ryan Seratt:
Thanks, Aaron. Absolutely. That performance support, as is something that I think that we've really needed for a long time, especially in the digital age, or the information age I, I'm not sure which one we're in. But we're kind of in both, right? So the amount of information that is coming in is just more than what the human brain can contain. Our brains are not able to hold more information than they were in the 1950s. We haven't evolved that much. But the amount of information that we're getting blasted with every day or is coming at us and deciphering what's important and what's not, is a hard task. So in and so having a performance support, if you're doing classroom is just as important as if you're doing e-learning. How do people pull information to themselves in their moment of need, just because they don't remember it? Where they don't they're not sure on how to do it. Having those resources available is important.


Aaron Waggoner:
Great, thank you. Sorry, I thought I was off of you. So the next question I have that's come through, what's the biggest factor in what do you feel is the biggest factor in a successful performance support program?


Ryan Seratt:
I think the, the biggest factor in a successful program is making sure that the content is in a format that's easily, easily digestible. So for example, if we're looking at tip sheets, that the tip sheets are very concise on what you need to do, there's not a lot of extra information, explaining things or instruction. It's really just on what are the steps, the same thing on the videos, the videos need to be in four minutes or less preferably, they need to kind of get to the point, and they need to help you go through the workflows.


Aaron Waggoner:
Okay, great. So I just want to remind everyone, if you have a question, please be sure to type it in. I'm coming to the last question that's come through so far. So if you have a question, be sure to get it in. Otherwise, we will be wrapping up the session here in just a minute. Okay. So the last question I had come through Ryan, is, what metrics? What metrics are the most important to track?


Ryan Seratt:
That's a great question. That in a performance support tool, it's very different than what you would track in a learning management system. Learning Management System is about did, did everyone go to the training? And did they completed its tracking? With the performance support tool? I think that really what we're what we're wanting to see is, how many unique users do I have every month? And how many times did they pull content? So it's much more like a website of getting hits? So for example, if Aaron, if if you're looking for information, I don't want to track; Did you watch three minutes of video, if you got the information that you needed in one minute, that's even more successful, but I want to track how many times you came and consumed information in a given month. So how many unique users came and how many times did they consume information are the most important statistics.


Aaron Waggoner:
Okay, well, no other questions have come through. So if you do have any questions, or you think of a comment that you'd like to get to Ryan, be sure to note that on the survey that will pop up in your web browser at the end of the session. I'm just gonna take this opportunity to say thank you to everyone who attended today. We appreciate your attendance. And I want to say thank you to Ryan for presenting. Ryan, do you have any closing words?


Ryan Seratt:
No, I just want to thank everyone for attending. I appreciate you coming today. And if you'd like to discuss more about performance support, or you're interested in performance support solutions, we'd be happy to meet and discuss with you.


Aaron Waggoner:
Oh, great. Thank you so much, and I hope that everyone enjoys their afternoon. Have a great day, guys.