By Ginny Kenyon
Online education is not only the future of education for schools and institutions, but also for the healthcare industry. Unfortunately, many healthcare organizations are behind the times when it comes to implementing online education as their chose for aide education. This is a mistake, since taking advantage of this type of training is beneficial in many ways to your organization and it’s bottom line.
According to Principles of Adult Learning and Instructional Systems Design, adults learn best through a combination of learning domains and styles. Many of the traditional healthcare educational methods don’t encompass this idea; rather, focus on only one type of ineffectual learning for all training. In the long run, aides don’t receive a quality education, and you waste valuable resources. Here we discuss why online education is relevant in healthcare and how it saves your organization money.
Online Education and the Healthcare Industry
Educating your staff is crucial to the success of your healthcare organization. Better educated aides equals better client care, which results in growth. But the old model of outdated training materials, expensive conferences, and preparing lectures for time-consuming on-site sessions is costly and ineffective.
Because of the need for up-to-date constantly changing information, online education is indeed relevant for the healthcare industry. When providing education accessed online, you arm your aides with their most important tool while caring for clients – knowledge. Not only that, but using learning accessed online instead of traditional training methods reduces how much you spend on education for your aides.
Online Education and Your Bottom Line
There are several ways online education benefits your aides, clients, and entire organization, but one of the most significant benefits is the positive impact it has on your spending. Take a look at these eight ways online education saves your organization money.
1. Easily updated. Videos, DVDs, professional journal articles, and other materials need to be replaced on a regular basis to keep up with the constant changes and new discoveries in healthcare. This gets expensive. Education online can be easily updated, at no cost to you, by the provider as needed.
2. Eliminates the need for additional staff. Because education can be competed any time it’s convenient for learners – such as between client visits or during low census – no additional aides are required to cover client care responsibilities during training.
3. Doesn’t involve conference costs. Conferences can be a great way to build relationships, but aren’t the most efficient avenue for learning. Lodging, travel, and food are just a few of the expenses incurred during conference trips.
4. No need to hire lecturers. Maybe you’re thinking you’ll bring the conference to you and save some money? There’s still the cost of hiring lecturers, paying their expenses, and paying for care coverage while aides attend the lecture, which is costly.
5. Cuts out mileage costs. With online education, there’s no need to pay mileage to bring staff members to the training site.
6. Gives you more bang for your buck. With real-life scenarios and multiple learning techniques, education online helps adult learners retain knowledge better than other methods.
7. Easily accessible. Online availability gives this material an advantage because it’s accessible 24/7 and can be reviewed any time aides needs a refresher.
8. Self-contained training. When providing education online, there’s no need to hire educators to research and update topics, prepare presentations, grade tests, or file grades. Everything is conveniently tracked for you.
If you’re looking for the best online education for your aides, consider Kenyon Aide University. Offering the in-depth knowledge and skills aides need to provide superior care, Aide University is the ultimate solution for healthcare education. To learn more, reach out to us today.
Reduce Costs With Online Education For Healthcare Aides first appeared at Kenyon Connects on July 27, 2015.
Ginny Kenyon is the founder and CEO of Kenyon HomeCare Consulting, a home health consulting firm that gives agencies a market advantage, promotes creative product development, and offers viable ways to achieve and sustain organizational and fiscal success.
