TRAINING WHEELS AREN'T JUST FOR BICYCLES
By Ann Mendlowitz
Have you ever been part of a system implementation where you had to develop training
materials from scratch? If you have, you know what a struggle it can be to remember all of
the details you want to incorporate into the end user manuals. It is hard enough trying to
review workflows and validate that all of the details have been incorporated into your
material. On previous projects, I had to develop a project plan just to keep track of the
development of end user and Train-the-Trainer training manuals.
As of the Spring, 06 Epic release, Epic created Training Wheels. Training Wheels is a
starter kit of information that can be used to assist in building your end user and
Train-the-Trainer manuals. Each Epic application (Cadence, Prelude, EpicCare Ambulatory,
etc.) has its own kit of training information. The information includes, lesson plans which
include exercises and questions, master patient build spreadsheets and spreadsheets to
assist with tracking of your progress and assessments.
The lesson plans will need to be customized to your organization’s training needs.
Each lesson plan will address the functionality of the Epic application and helpful
hints/reminders that you might want to use. Exercises and review questions with answers are
also included in the lesson plan. The exercises will step through each piece of the
application. If you are teaching only Epic functionality, the lesson plans will need only
minor adjustments.
I found that after I refined the lesson plans, writing the curriculum was much easier
than previous implementations. During the writing of the end user and Train-the-Trainer
manuals, I was able to refer to the lesson plan to validate that I had addressed every step
within the application.
The application you are teaching will determine how much pre-build you need for the
student exercises. I have spent numerous hours establishing the pre-build requirements for
the master patients. Now, Training Wheels contains a spreadsheet, which outlines the
pre-build of master patients. The spreadsheet includes very detailed generic demographic
information for the patient, guarantor and subscriber information. There is also a section
where you can correlate the exercises with each master patient. Depending upon your
organization, you will need to customize the spreadsheet.
After the master patients are built, you can use the Patient Duplicator to duplicate your
master patient. Patient Duplicator is an efficient way to duplicate a patient so each exercise
will have the same results. There is one flaw with Patient Duplicator; you cannot copy patient
information, such as charges, that are sitting in the Temporary Accounts Receivable (TAR). This
will impact the build of charge review workqueue exercises.
The pros for using Training Wheels are:
- Eliminates the need for brainstorming sessions to outline training needs.
- Provides detailed lesson plans for Epic functionality.
- Ensure consistent format for the lesson plans regardless of the application.
- Cuts the lesson plan preparation time in half.
- Expedites the development of the end user and Train-the-Trainer materials.
In conclusion, my experience using Epic’s Training Wheels has cut the development
time of lesson plans and end user materials by half. The use of Patient Duplicator has
assisted in alleviating the errors that can occur when multiple individuals assist with the
pre-build of the training patients the end users will use in their exercises. If you would
like more information on Epic and the VCS Epic Practice, please feel free to contact me
directly at
amendlowitz@getvitalized.com
or call our Corporate Offices at 610-444-1233.