It’s important for nurses to have good math skills for the safety of Alrijne Healthcare Group’s patients. In order to improve and innovate the education policy for “Math for Nurses,” Alrijne Healthcare Group asked Xprtise to work on hospital-specific workplace learning solutions. The result? A clear educational program and motivated nurses.
Caroline Luijbregts, Learning & Development advisor at Alrijne Healthcare Group:
“We wondered if assessing in a formal way was the only way to test and support our nurses with the obligatory ‘Math for Nurses’ skill. There was a lot of dissatisfaction with the test – not only because colleagues thought questions were too hard, but also because there were no references after the test. And the timing of learning moments was not in line with nurses’ schedules. The 5 Moments of Need® methodology provides us with insight into the moments when colleagues are best motivated to learn something and how we can respond to that.”
Alrijne Healthcare Group’s request
In the online learning environment of Alrijne Academy, employees are offered education relevant to their role, so that they are able to develop their knowledge independently.
To reduce education time, improve employee satisfaction with the current assessment policy, and optimize work performance, Alrijne asked for Xprtise’s knowledge. The focus is on “Math for Nurses.” This education has been appointed by the Supervisory Board as a risky part of medication dispensing, which is why it’s a highly prioritized subject.
5 Moments of Need® methodology
Through the 5 Moments of Need® workshop, Caroline and her L&D colleague were inspired to work with this method and further enhance workplace learning in their organization.
Neeltje de Ruijter, senior consultant at Xprtise and closely involved in the Alrijne project: “The goal of this 5 Moments of Need® approach for Alrijne Academy is to develop a new learning strategy, in which the choice has been made to respond to nurses’ learning needs.”
Alrijne wants to inspire other hospitals to engage and design workplace learning. Caroline: “We teach and stimulate our nurses to learn exactly in the moment when they are motivated and have the need to learn. That’s important to me, because that’s when learning is really effective.”
Approach for designing workplace learning solutions
Under the supervision of business consultant Janine van Zoest, Xprtise organized two 5 Moments of Need® workshops for the whole Alrijne Learning & Development team. In these workshops, topics such as Performance Support and Adaptive Learning were covered with regard to “Math for Nurses.” In addition, Xprtise provided an analysis process for “Math for Nurses” and the results of the workshops were elaborated in a Learning Experience and Performance Plan (LEaP). Based on that, the learning assets were charted, and Alrijne’s available content and its quality were reviewed. Neeltje de Ruijter: “The LEaP Plan is the basis for the workplace learning solutions to be developed.”
An innovative workplace learning solution was developed: AskAlrijne. This empowers nurses to work more effectively at every needed moment by providing exactly the right amount of accurate information. In addition, a smart adaptive learning system called Drillster was used to develop an adaptive math assessment. This adaptive learning reminds nurses to update their math skills by answering some questions just before they tend to forget. Thanks to that, nurses’ math skill level is guaranteed at any moment.
Based on the LEaP plan, questions were composed for this math test in collaboration with the employees of the Alrijne Pharmacy. The AskAlrijne Performance Support and Drillster adaptive test were demonstrated. A user manual and an infographic about the 5 Moments of Need® methodology was developed to support a successful implementation for everyone involved in the project.
In a first pilot phase lasting two months, 180 Alrijne employees got access to the AskAlrijne online platform. The most important principle was to acquire feedback about the convenience of the Performance Support environment and ease of using the adaptive learning tool in the nurses’ daily tasks.
Caroline: “Xprtise knows so much about the methodology. They gave us practical examples from hospitals, which made it a lot clearer to us how workplace learning can really support employees and how we can create leverage for that in our organization.’’
The result so far
The outcome of the “Go-live Proof of Concept” pilot for 180 Alrijne employees was very positive. More than 70% were very positive about the clarity of the Math for Nurses project before the pilot started. The AskAlrijne platform helped over 95% to be competent in Math for Nurses, and over 80% recommended it to their colleagues. Neeltje: “Because of the pilot, we can be certain that if we roll out the workplace learning solution completely, we will (1) reduce education and training time, (2) improve the employee satisfaction for the current assessment policy, and (3) optimize the work performance.” Alrijne will therefore continue the collaboration with Xprtise in 2018.
Caroline: “We are very satisfied with the collaboration between Alrijne Academy and Xprtise. The consultants are constantly in contact with us and are well accessible, they ask critical questions, and always keep their promises and agreements. Xprtise really dug into our organization and cases that could or could not work in a hospital environment, and based their advice on that. It’s customization: they’re not just consulting with any customer – they’re with you! They think that a solution should work and continue until we have that ‘wow feeling.’”