Is there ever a situation where it benefits Department Heads, Clinical Educators, etc., to take more of an active role in continuing education management?
Caregivers have plenty of incentive to own this responsibility themselves. After all, their livelihood depends on having an active license, and continuing education is the first step in the renewal process.
Employers, too, have a vested interest in ensuring employees have valid, active licensure. When caregivers miss deadlines to complete CE and renew licensure, it’s not just they who suffer. Employers face scheduling disruptions, and patients may end up having care rescheduled or redistributed.
In any case, it’s best to have everyone on board and invested in the CE completion and license renewal process. Since caregivers are trained in the fine art of patient care rather than admin, many hospitals are looking for solutions to help caregivers actively manage the process. Empowering caregivers with various resources helps reduce the instance of elapsed licensure and sends the message that everyone is on the same team with the same general goals.
So what do these resources look like? Here are a few ways your team can align itself with the goals of your caregivers - completing continuing education and renewing licensure on time.
Track what’s required, what’s completed, and what’s outstanding.
Caregivers often feel like they’re taking a shot in the dark with what CE is required for renewal, what they’ve completed, what’s in progress, and what’s still outstanding. That can be frustrating, but fortunately, there are tools that provide much better transparency not only for the caregivers themselves but for your team, as well.
CE tracking tools, like EverCheck Education, show real-time information about CE requirements and completions. This information mirrors what the various licensing boards see, so your team can assist caregivers in knowing where they stand.
EverCheck Education also comes standard with access to CE Broker Professional accounts for employees, so they’re able to find answers to the question of what else? without having to contact the board or your department.
Send reminders.
License renewals aren’t the kind of task that caregivers can set a reminder about on the due date and take care of it that day. Completing CE requires effort and time, something caregivers don’t always have much of. So it’s nice if they have someone looking out for them, sending friendly reminders in advance of the deadline that says Don’t forget… you have an upcoming renewal deadline.
As nice as these reminders may seem to caregivers, Department Heads/HR/anyone else who’s responsible for sending the reminders may feel differently. Traditionally, this would require the responsible party to pull a list of upcoming renewals and send emails to caregivers manually. But the key to skirting all of this extra effort is automation. EverCheck Education uses a set-it-and-forget-it approach to CE deadline and renewal reminders, whereby employers can designate how frequently the reminders should be sent to caregivers and what the message should say (to stay consistent with what one would normally say had it come from the employer), and that’s it. EverCheck takes care of the rest.
Provide great courses.
No one likes sitting through a snoozer. You likely don’t have control over all of the CE content the caregivers are consuming but make the content you do have control over awesome. Your learners should walk away feeling like the course was engaging, thoughtfully organized, and provided key takeaways. Because when you make CE feel less like a chore and more like an employee benefit, caregivers are more inclined to get it done.
--
Providing resources like friendly email reminders, excellent course content, and tools to manage CE to employees shows that everyone is invested in compliance and patient care. It bakes it right into your company culture and sets you apart as the type of organization that supports its caregivers, even when it’s not necessarily required of you. That’s the type of above-and-beyond that builds the foundation of teamwork and excellence.
