Genesis Healthcare

Role

Solution Architecture
Development
Data migration
Training

Industry

Medical

Technology

AngularJS
Java
Amazon Web Services
Custom LMS

parter since March 2016

Engaging Learning for a Dynamic Business

about

Genesis Healthcare is a leader and one of the largest post-acute care providers in the nation, with over 370 nursing facilities, contract rehabilitation services at more than 1,300 locations, a physician services business with more than 450 Genesis physicians and APPs, the only long-term care ACO, and a progressive staffing business.
 
With more than 60,000 team members and clinicians providing high quality, compassionate care to both short-stay rehabilitation and long-term care patients throughout the U.S. Genesis Healthcare leads the way.

key outcomes

Employee compliance enablement
Scaleable learning platform
Increased employee productivity

the challenge

Not only a healthcare provider, Genesis Healthcare is also an enormous educational institution. With over 60,000 employees requiring annual compliance and re-certification training, orientation programs, new or updated systems training, new operational programs, and compliance reporting, a highly flexible learning management system is essential. Outside of current staffing, an average of 15,000 new employees are added annually and need to be trained immediately with onboarding, operational and clinical practices, and systems programs.
 
Without formal education standards or an instructional design team, SMEs were needed to design, develop, and create various education opportunities. This process resulted in various types of content being created, delivery of content in different formats and placed in various locations, and little or no tracking of completions. In addition, content that had been made available to staff was often never reviewed for updates. This resulted in many live-led education sessions that were manually tracked on paper.
 
A discovery was made that off-the-shelf LMS solutions could not fulfill these needs. We needed something better! Work with Synegen starting in late 2016 to develop a custom learning platform.

the solution

The partnership with Synegen emerged at the confluence of several simultaneous initiatives:
 
  • The exploration of on-line learning services in mainland China.
  • The implementation of a new clinical education and support model.
  • The imperative to improve on-line learning services for IT technical services and business systems.
 
At this moment in time, a dedicated eLearning technology services and instructional design team was formed and a partnership with Synegen to envision, develop, and launch a new and persistent learning platform - vitalLearn was realized.
 
vitalLearn's role:
  • Solve several enormous needs for the growing business.
  • Provide an eLearning experience suited for the clinical worker -- simple, engaging, effective, consumable in small, purposeful segments.
  • Focused education on knowledge and skill acquisition, the learning that can be applied at the bedside in support of patient care.
  • Provide an organized, common platform for all employee (including 3rd party) education with full tracking, reporting and integrated transcripts.
  • Provide the flexibility for centers to create and assign education based on center-based initiatives and supporting in-person immediate intervention education opportunities that are trackable.
  • Ensure compliance with federal and state mandatory education and special programs.
  • Integrate with HR and network systems for auto-enrollment, eliminate the highly manual audience management and paper tracking processes.
In production since 2017, vitalLearn has been able to deliver on all capabilities noted above, and continues to push the envelope to bring increasing sophistication and efficiency to Genesis operations including vaccination tracking for infectious disease.

the result

A fully custom learning management system was developed specifically suited to a large, geographically dispersed organization focused on clinical quality and outcomes. The site allowed for an easy user experience due to visual graphics and colors to indicate status.  Assigned content was easily accessible, and elective education offerings could easily be searched for.
 
With Synegen's help, Genesis was able to support 1,350 business locations, register 69,000 active users, and supply vitalLearn courses to 360,000 users. In addition, they added over 7,000 courses and assist in the completion of over 1,750,000 courses over the last 12 months.
"Synegen was there every step of the way with creative ideas, practical experience, proven designs and timely execution. A true partner in every sense of the word."

- Rich Castor, former CIO Genesis HealthCare, Inc.
 
 
" In our business, there's always an opportunity for our employees to learn and grow, and vitalLearn is there to support their growth today and into the future. "We continue to evolve the vitalLearn system to meet the ever-changing needs and demands of our business. Synegen continues to provide unique solutions-based ideas to help us meet these needs while staying within budget constraints."

- Karen Stambaugh, Director - eLearning Technology Services Genesis HealthCare, Inc.