Care2Learn’s Bradley Smith
Talks to Long-Term Living Magazine

In the July 2010 issue of Long-Term Living magazine (a trade publication targeted to continuing care professionals), Editor Maureen Hrehocik interviewed Care2Learn’s Bradley Smith and others for the article “Online CE: Know questions to ask when choosing content, provider.”

Bradley Smith, a Healthcare Account Manager at Care2Learn and licensed Nursing Home Administrator, and representatives from two other providers addressed some of the critical questions healthcare professionals need to ask when choosing an education provider to maintain their licenses or fulfill other CE requirements.

When asked, “With the wide array of online continuing education (CE) choices, where does an administrator or training staff start to choose what's best for personnel?” the panel agreed that convenience, cost efficiency, accessibility, interactivity, quality, trackability, reliability, and reporting were important considerations.

Given the need to be cost-conscious, the constantly changing plethora of healthcare rules and regulations, the mandatory reporting of CE results and facility performance to state and federal government agencies, the hectic pace of society in general and the busy schedules of many healthcare professionals, Bradley Smith offered the following to help those considering which online education provider to choose:

“Make sure you ask how large their library is, and ask questions about the quality of their content. How many accrediting boards are they affiliated with and what type of relationship do they have? How easy is it for someone to go online and take the courses? Is it user-friendly and intuitive? Can an administrator assign courses and then run reports tracking them? And lastly, can the education be built and personalized to your facility?”

Another panel member remarked that there are “a zillion and one places online to get free CEs,” and mentioned both the difficulty of tracking those courses and ensuring that the content was in line with your organization’s goals. The third panel member mentioned the perils of becoming cost-focus at the expense of meeting goals, stating that with free online training programs you “get what you pay for.”

Care2Learn has answered that problem with a high-quality, easy-to-use online training solution backed by the largest online course library in the industry – one that serves more than 400 interactive courses across 17 different healthcare disciplines. A Care2Learn online university can be customized to an organization’s branding, messaging, and goals, and can deliver curriculums specific to either an individual or one or more groups. Further, online delivery is readily accessible, gives consistent information to everyone in the organization, and eliminates scheduling conflicts and travel expenses.

“Online learning is very cost-effective,” Smith concluded in the interview. “It's very expensive to send people out to CE courses. In today's economy it's simply cost prohibitive.” Smith also pointed out the benefits of an LMS like Care2Learn’s, which is searchable by F-tags, and the practicality of an online university managed by facility administrators and a Care2Learn healthcare account manager. “Not only does the staff learn how to correct the problem, but the facility has a plan of correction to show the state and government how that plan was carried out,” he said.