Siemens launches personalized education plan for laboratory and healthcare staff

31 Jan 2011

Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics has introduced the Personalized Education Plan (PEP), a competency-based clinical laboratory education model.

Healthcare professionals, guided by their own instructional Avatar, are easily able to plan a wide variety of product-specific, professional development and job-relevant courses. And because PEP also tracks each individual's training path, it becomes easier for healthcare staff to monitor their progress as they work towards achieving required knowledge proficiency requirements and ensuring they remain current and compliant.

At a time when clinical laboratory managers face staffing shortages, cost constraints, and greater workloads — all while helping healthcare providers deliver quality patient care — the value of education becomes increasingly important. PEP helps address many of these challenges with an innovative approach to professional healthcare education. This includes a new standard for competency-based education, administrative and tracking support for all participants, along with the ability to mold the curriculum to support various learning needs.

"Over the past four decades, the clinical laboratory diagnostics market has relied heavily upon a 'train-the-trainer' approach for laboratorians to achieve mastery of sophisticated instrumentation, which can be inefficient and expensive," said Chris Christopher, Vice President, Global Customer Solutions, Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics.

"By leveraging today's IT and advanced learning management systems, we developed Personalized Education Plan—a highly innovative, competency-based learning approach that will dramatically change the way our industry conducts training."

PEP offers customized laboratory education that blends interactive training with hands-on practice and assessment to reinforce and internalize learning. Online education is available anytime, anywhere, and is accessible and convenient for all shifts and staff levels. The curricula are standardized and evergreen, ensuring all staff receive consistent education regardless of shift, location or tenure with the company.

"PEP will be a huge advantage to the laboratory because it will bring together all the educational aspects that have always been available offsite and online," says Marilyn Leonard, Chemistry Supervisor, White Plains Hospital, White Plains, NY. "It'll allow me to continually assess and guarantee that everybody in the lab, 24/7, all the different shifts and staff levels — whether full, part time or per diem employees—have the same level of competency."

The Personalized Education Plan is available exclusively to Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics customers as part of the company's Customer Care portfolio, which includes services and support, education and training, and workflow management. PEP is currently available in English and will soon be available in multiple languages.

"Siemens has a long history of offering a blended approach to customer training through access to our training centers, onsite education, regional events, and technology-based education systems, which support training at a distance," said Christopher. "With our Personalized Education Plan, we are taking our educational support tools to the next level."