What have we learned from teaching for 10 years?
Across the spectrum of care, it is simply not enough to take basic IPAC Principles in a theoretical learning platform and expect your frontline workers to translate the theoretical (classroom, lecture style learning) into the practical. At the end of the day, isn’t that the point of education? To inform your practice? To keep your patients, residents, clients safe? To keep yourself, family and co-workers safe?
The end goal of any educational activity or session is to improve the delivery care and to enhance safety to not only those we are caring for but to ourselves, co-workers and our families.
Concepts such as chain of transmission, hand hygiene, donning and doffing personal protective equipment (PPE), and more may seem to be uniform across the spectrum of care. But these basic principles are quickly convoluted – to the point where, as a 3rd party, we have had to step back and look at the site specific circumstance – and think it through.
Theoretical training, meaning classroom or e-learning platforms, still absolutely play a significant role in training. Unfortunately we have been to many clients in which they have purchased onsite or practical learning, and the individuals we are supposed to train are new to the role.
Basic concepts, terms / definitions and tasks are not understood. We end up spending most of our time teaching these basic principles rather than diving into the practical application of them.
That’s why we here at IPAC Consulting are such big advocates of blended learning! We have seen the greatest success when there’s a “blending” or hybrid of theoretical teaching and practical application.
We recommend that individuals take online learning modules to get the basic IPAC principles down. We facilitate online discussion groups (Proctoring) to enhance the experience as our learners work through the e-learning modules. Once those are complete, IPAC Consulting will send one of our consultants onsite to help apply the concepts to your IPAC or Health and Safety program. We accomplish this through working alongside your staff – allowing us to customize our training directly to the learning needs of your staff.
Many leaders are incorporating blended learning into their corporate L&D strategy. Through blended learning your staff will be able to take advantage of the best of both worlds; theoretical and practical learning. This interactive style of learning increases your ROI tenfold.
Contact IPAC Consulting today to discuss a learning plan for your facility, home or office!
