Choosing an LMS for Healthcare: Here’s What to Consider

Employee training can be tough in any industry, but is especially so in healthcare. Between impossibly busy schedules and what feels like a revolving door of new employees, it’s challenging to stay on top of the latest protocols and certifications, let alone implement new technology.

These training challenges make a learning management system (LMS) a must for modern healthcare organizations. But not just any LMS will do — you need one that delivers flexible and effective training that’s engaging for learners, while simplifying your training program management. You also need to be able to easily determine whether your employees are in compliance with current healthcare standards and regulations.

The market for healthcare learning management systems is growing at nearly 25% each year, and this momentum is predicted to continue through 2026. With so many learning solutions on the market, how do you choose the best option for your healthcare organization? Here’s what to keep in mind.

Security comes first in the healthcare industry

Maintaining the security of your data is a top priority in healthcare. But that isn’t limited to just HIPAA for patient data protection. You should also be protecting your employees’ information and the company’s training data.

Take the appropriate steps to prevent unauthorized access or breaches. For example, when evaluating potential LMS providers, ask which specific features and tools they use and provide to protect your sensitive information. 

Look for advanced security features like:

• Encryption that encodes data to prevent unauthorized access
• Automatic backups that allow you to restore your data if something goes wrong
• Single Sign-On (SSO) to give you a secure way to log into multiple apps and websites with a single set of credentials

With 360Learning, you can set up SSO OpenID for your learners. This security feature ties into your existing system’s login process to validate the authenticity of your users. You can also activate a setting that restricts access to specific IP addresses, as an additional security measure.

Offer flexible courses in a variety of formats

It’s best to choose a user-friendly LMS with flexible learning options for training a large workforce, whether they’re at your facility or in the field. Features like mobile eLearning and self-guided learning enable employees to access courses wherever and whenever needed. This is especially important in the healthcare sector, where employees are often on tight schedules and can benefit from completing training on the go. 

By making your training content easy to access, your employees will be more likely to participate in and complete required training. With 360Learning, learners who use both web and mobile learning options take 70% more courses.

Prioritize compliance and continuing education management

Learning management systems simplify your job by reducing the administrative burdens of compliance training. Your LMS should be able to quickly track and validate training certifications, and send automated notifications when course credentials will soon expire or lapse.

As an example, the 360Learning platform can award employees a digital certificate after completing a program or course. You can set a validity period for that certificate and receive automated notifications when it expires.

With the right LMS, you can also maintain records of your employees' formal and informal continuing education (CE) activities. At a minimum, your software should be able to generate and export reports that you can submit to the proper accreditation body, like The Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME). Some healthcare-focused LMSs can even automatically submit continuing medical education (CME) activities to the proper accrediting organization.

Look for collaborative capabilities in your LMS

With L&D budget cuts and layoffs rampant in a shaky economy, your LMS needs to have an outsized effect on your learning programs. LMS with collaborative capabilities help you do more with less by speeding up the course creation process and ensuring your programs accurately reflect your learners’ needs.

With a collaborative LMS, multiple authors can work together to create and edit courses simultaneously, and learners can get involved by sharing and commenting on course content. These interactions create a sense of community and teamwork among your authors and learners, fostering better workplace communication and overall motivation.

Collaborative LMSs also enable you to add standardized training from other data sources into your training protocol. For example, a coding certification can be pulled into your LMS for a clinic group that uses materials from a governing body. Incorporating data from other sources can save considerable time and energy that would otherwise be spent developing training programs from scratch.

Collaborative learning solutions also can help healthcare companies train and upskill their staff from within, making it easier for employees to learn and collaborate. Administrators can identify internal subject matter experts who work together to develop high-quality courses on any subject–from clinical skills and patient safety training, to leadership and professional development.

Choosing the right LMS is just the first step

Once you've selected the right LMS for your organization, we suggest as next steps:

• Configure your LMS to meet your organization's specific needs, including creating user accounts, setting up courses, and integrating it with your existing systems.
• Create mandatory courses, assessments, and other learning materials, including establishing schedules and completion deadlines.
• Track and measure the success of your learning programs, including monitoring completion rates, assessing the effectiveness of different learning methods, and gathering feedback from learners.
• Your organization's needs will change over time, so keep an eye on potential updates or changes to your LMS that might improve its ability to meet your evolving training needs.

360Learning is a powerful collaborative LMS and LXP (learning experience platform) that helps your teams build courses together, identify training needs, and track credentials and certifications. Get a personalized demo to see how our comprehensive features can help your company fulfill all its healthcare training needs, from a single centralized platform.