Learning to know what you don't know: Uncovering the issues involved in the implementation of an Intranet based learning management system in a hospital setting

What does it take to get an online learning system up and running in a hospital?

A long standing problem in the field of hospital based continuing education is the issue of access to training and education. The problem is particularly acute for clinical staff such nurses and doctors.

Hospitals are open seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. To provide this service shift work essential. On any given day a staff member may be on one of 4 shifts, or off duty. The work itself often demands immediate attention, the flow is unpredictable, and volume is progressively increasing.

The level of skill required to complete the work is also increasing constantly. In response, most hospitals have developed targeted mandatory training programs. Unfortunately, at the same time hospital budgets are under pressure and staff education departments are reducing and in some cases disappearing.

In summary, many hospital clinical staff have limited opportunities to address their essential workplace learning and mandatory training demands. This is despite the high need and potential consequences to patients.

Hospital clinical staff require, twenty-four hour access to consistent, high quality, cost effective, courseware designed to support their essential and mandatory learning requirements. On paper, an online computer managed learning system would appear to fit the bill.

This type of system is typically the realm of universities and large corporations. Hospitals, in general, do not have the infrastructure or the skill base to support such systems. St Vincent's Hospital Melbourne is an example of an atypical hospital that has developed both.

Over the past 12 months St Vincent's Hospital has implemented a hospital wide Intranet based flexible learning system specifically to support the training and learning needs of bedside clinical staff. We believe this is the first time an Australian hospital has implemented an Intranet based learning system of this scope.

A major challenge for organisational educators and trainers initiating such projects is knowing what questions to ask. IT want to know about specifications, line managers want to know about impacts on work load, administrators want to know about cost benefits, staff want to know what's in for them and pretty much everyone wants to know who is going to pay for it. How do you know what you don't know?

This paper will provide a signpost to the issues other hospital based educators may encounter as they attempt the transition into the realm of Intranet based online learning.