Educating During a Pandemic: Novel Educational Training for Incident Reporting via eLearning in the Radiation Therapy Department

ABSTRACT

Aim: Since 2018, steps have been undertaken to improve quality culture in the Radiation Therapy program including implementation of a new incident reporting software designed to improve ease of reporting for frontline staff. Recognizing that delivering education on incident reporting relies heavily on examples and clarification of details, an education plan involving in-person, small group sessions with interactive learning opportunities was designed. When COVID restrictions limited group gatherings, alternative delivery methods were explored with online learning being the most viable option. Our aim was to create an eLearning module that was engaging, informative, interactive, and highly example-based to meet the same learning objectives as traditional in-person education. Process Development began with the creation of learning objectives and content developed for the person session was converted into logically ordered sections with clinical application examples and check-in activities for the online environment. Topical outline included a review of terminology, why and what to report, and how to use the software. Interactive activities reinforced knowledge and provided practice in identifying what should be reported and in critiquing documentation. The final product was created using Articulate360 authoring tool. As a part of the eLearning course, a pre and post self-assessment survey was embedded to measure the perceived effectiveness of the course contents. Benefits/Challenges Creating educational content in an eLearning module provides increased accessibility for learners, permits ad hoc refreshers as needed, fosters consistency in disseminated information, and is potentially a starting point for a catalogue of courses available for onboarding new staff. Challenges included limiting information per adult learning principles, editing content to ensure visual appeal, and resource demands on instructional designers. Due to an increase in hospital-wide requests for eLearning modules in response to COVID restrictions, there was a significant wait time for initiation of the project. Impact/Outcomes: Based on the results of the pre and post-assessment surveys, 95% of learners reported that they had an increase in understanding of both incident reporting and Improvement Flow. This is a considerably favorable outcome and is indicative that we have successfully implemented an eLearning module that is engaging and informative and that meets the learning objectives originally intended for in-person education. Self-assessment regarding one's abilities to know when to report an incident that causes patient harm (medical or dosimetric), reaches the patient but does NOT cause harm and that is caught and corrected before reaching the patient each increased by 17.5% after completion of the course with an overall positive response rate of 95%, 100%, and 97.5% respectively. In regards to self-assessment of one's abilities to use Improvement Flow, results indicated a positive 32.5% increase post-module completion with 95% of respondents indicating they are comfortable using the program. An additional 32.5% improvement was seen in response to individuals' self-assessment of their abilities to recognize when a situation is reportable with an overall 95% of respondents indicating positive assessments. Our experience indicates that training that requires interactive, example-based learning and clarification of details is capable of being delivered via an eLearning platform with robustly positive results. Copyright © 2022