This article is the second part of a series that follows our first article, “Be a Leader by Offering CE Courses for Healthcare Professionals”.
As shared in our first article, it is essential for healthcare professionals (HCPs), to continue to keep up to date with the latest advancements in their field as well as maintain licensure and certification. When considering offering online healthcare education, it’s important to provide online courses that are convenient, relevant, and valuable. Here are the essential steps to creating meaningful online CE courses for your audience.
Identify your Target Audience
First, you need to fully understand your target audience. Specifically, determine which HCPs your courses will be aimed at. Are you targeting nurses, doctors, pharmacists, or a combination of these and other professions? Understanding your target audience is important in creating courses that meet their needs.
Conduct a Needs Assessment
Before creating any courses, it is important to determine what are the likely learning gaps or pain points that your target audience has. Insights will help you define what topics or areas of knowledge your target audience needs. It is important to identify relevant topics that use evidence-based and up-to-date information. It is also important to determine what topics or areas of knowledge your target audience needs to maintain their licensure and certification. Topics to include should appeal to HCPs just beginning their careers and others looking to advance their career to the next level.
Your needs analysis process can be accomplished in several ways that include the use of surveys, focus groups, or other information-gathering methods that can include interviews, document reviews, and advisory committees.
Define the Learning Objectives
Tailor the learning objectives to ensure they are appropriate for your learners’ needs. Learning objectives should use action verbs and be specific.
Once a topic is chosen, determine learning outcomes that detail what the learner should know or be able to do after completing a course. It is also important to consider how these learning outcomes can be measured.
Plan Metrics to Measure Success
Within your planning, you should be thinking ahead as to how you intend to implement metrics. After you have launched the program and it has been used by your audience, how will you measure the success of the education? It is important to plan early on as to how you will measure success. Some of the important areas that you want to consider measuring are:
- Time to complete the course
- Course completion rates
- Activity completion rates
- Learner performance before and after training
- Most viewed materials
- Survey feedback on the level of learner satisfaction
Determine the Course Format
Decide on the format of the CE course. Will it be a self-paced online course, a live webinar, or a combination of both? This can include written materials, videos, interactive activities, and assessments. Consider which format will be most effective for your target audience and the content being presented.
Self-paced eLearning is a popular choice as it is convenient for HCPs on the go with access available 24/7. It is generally less expensive than live webinars and offers learners to proceed at their own pace. If you do consider a blended training approach that includes a live webinar, this can be recorded and readily converted into a self-paced eLearning program for HCPs that are not able to attend.
Create the Course
The content creation of a self-paced CE course is crucial to its success. Develop the course using instructional design principles to ensure it is engaging and effective. This will involve working with subject matter experts and instructional designers.
When starting, keep in mind the following design and development areas:
- The course should have an appealing visual design, be easy to navigate and be user-friendly.
- Incorporate multimedia elements to keep learners engaged.
- Develop quizzes, interactive activities, and assessments that reinforce the learning objectives.
Decide on the course structure, including the number and length of modules, and overall duration. This will help learners plan their time effectively and ensure the course content is manageable. This will also impact how many CE credits can be offered for completing the course.
Obtain Accreditation
Obtaining accreditation is a critical step in creating valuable online CE courses for healthcare professionals. Accreditation ensures that the course meets the highest standards for educational quality and is recognized by licensing boards.
Make sure your courses meet the requirements for accreditation by the appropriate organizations. This can include obtaining approval from state nursing boards, medical boards, or other accrediting bodies. Follow these steps to obtain accreditation:
- Identify accrediting agencies that are recognized by the appropriate licensing board.*
- Once an agency has been identified, review its standards to ensure that your CE course meets the requirements.
- After completing course development and final internal reviews, submit your application for accreditation. The application will typically require information about the course, including the learning objectives, content, instructional design, assessment methods, and faculty credentials.
- The next step is to pay the accreditation fees. The fees vary depending on the agency and the type of accreditation.
- Once the fees have been paid, the agency will conduct a review of your CE course. The review aims to ensure that your course meets the accrediting agency’s standards for educational quality.
- The course will receive accreditation if it meets the accrediting agency’s standards. This accreditation is typically valid for a certain period of time and requires ongoing compliance with the accrediting agency’s standards.
* Here are several accreditation agencies that may be helpful to review as they may pertain to your specific audience and clinical area of expertise:
https://www.accme.org, www.aanp.org/education/ce-accreditation, https://www.namss.org/Education/CE-Program-Accreditation-Center, www.achc.org/about-accreditation, https://aihcp.net/have-your-ce-programs-approval-by-aihcp, www.nursingworld.org/ancc, www.asrt.org/educators/accreditation, www.ceemed.com
Offering CE (Continuing Education) credit courses can provide a significant advantage to your organization in terms of marketing, sales, and business growth. With KDG InterActive’s experience, we can help your organization anywhere in the process to develop and launch online CE courses for your customers successfully.
Stay tuned for our next article of this series, “Steps to Successfully Publish and Promote Your CE Course”.
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