Custom Healthcare Learning Management Program

"The Banner Revenue Cycle Management team needed an eLearning solution that was scalable, intuitive, and robust to train employees and on-board new hires."

The Challenge
What we needed to overcome

To deliver better patient care and increase operational efficiency, healthcare institutions rely on ongoing education and training. Oftentimes, however, their learning resources, from content and technology to applications and tools, fall victim to the law of diminishing returns. These assets need to be upgraded regularly to make them more scalable, intuitive, and robust to keep pace with growth and expansion, evolving job requirements, and the pressures of regulatory compliance.

To meet those needs, the Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) team at Banner embarked on a new initiative to “modernize” their applications and workflows, and needed a training solution that was “modern” as well.

RCM was responsible for developing and managing the financial policies associated with patient claims processing and revenue generation. Charged with keeping their organization financially healthy, quality education and training became mandatory for their employees

Banner had a corporate-wide Learning Management System (LMS), managed by their HR Group, to serve employees and departments across their network. RCM, however, needed an LMS specifically tailored to their workflow needs where they could control users, content, and access while still being able to interface with their corporate LMS.

The content was also outdated, causing staff training to be siloed by region and hamstrung using homegrown content – PowerPoints and still images – that had outlived their usefulness.

These challenges stood in the way of RCM refining its revenue cycle reimbursement policies, upgrading applications and analytics, and optimizing workflows. To improve training and education outcomes for Banner’s RCM team:

• Existing content and tools required modernization to make their training curriculum more engaging and interactive.

• Navigation capabilities for the front and back-end billing registration system needed to be upgraded to new applications that better matched their needs.

• Training had to be matched to the correct business units that reside in RCM.

• Consistency, accuracy, and access to the “modern” training materials was needed.

"The eLearning solution was designed by Futura Healthcare and featured custom content, training modules, and a job role–specific portal combining all three training disciplines into a single page developed by Real Time Learning."

The Solution
Revenue Cycle Management eLearning Platform

RCM, in consultation with Atwater Solutions, its revenue cycle management services partner, brought in Futura Healthcare to help them pivot to a new, fullblown eLearning platform. The new LMS was designed by Futura Healthcare and featured customized content, training modules, and on-line tools developed by Real Time Learning.

Before making this decision, RCM spoke with four LMS providers. Their decision came down to who would provide the configuration and customization to allow them to make decisions on content, access, and workflow. It was important to collaborate with an organization that gave RCM educators direct access to content, enabling them to make timely changes on the fly and keep their course curriculum current.

The new LMS was specifically built for RCM team members, providing a convenient, one-stop shop for content, certifications skills measurement, and KPI set-up. It also:

• Was fully interactive and self-directed, allowing users to learn at their own pace and on their own schedule.

• Used updated training modules to support ongoing education.

• Improved the on-boarding of new revenue cycle management staff.

• Provided Banner with centralized control and introduced more robust, high-quality content.

• Enabled all unique workflows and training modules to be integrated so educators could spend more quality time training staff.

• Assigned training modules based on employee proficiency levels so they could learn at their own pace and then circle back for follow-ups as needed.

• Helped Banner Health IT facilitate the transition from two RCM registration software systems (one for acute sites and one for clinics) to a single Cerner® application that could be customized by Banner for internal use.

• Allowed a single site to deliver and measure training for all three methodologies (eLearning, job aids, and classroom) for each individual job role.

"The platform provides users with a sense of ownership – it feels like home, and it feels like home quickly!"

Amber Hermosillo
Director RCM Education and Quality

Next Steps

Banner RCM is continuing to work with Futura Healthcare to develop their own specific, custom eLearning modules as they prepare to implement their latest Cerner Revenue Cycle Modules. As a result, LMS platform demand is spreading, and RCM’s goal is to expand eLearning platform access to other departments by:

• Offering the services of the RCM education team to help set up and train them.

• Illustrating what eLearning has already achieved internally for Banner.

• Providing a location to combine the custom eLearning modules from Futura Healthcare along with traditional “off the shelf” learning from HBI into a simple, easy-to-follow workflow or “day in the life” for each RCM job role.

This initiative is already gaining traction. The Banner Imaging Group has been added as a customer and will get their own line of tailored content and a portal to access it. The Banner Urgent Care and Coding departments are lining up to participate, and more are expected to follow.

There is also a longer-term goal to enable the RCM department to become a revenue-generator and profit center for Banner. Once they optimize the new LMS, they plan to:

• Target healthcare institutions doing large projects that don’t want to invest in developing large eLearning platforms or creating their own education teams

• Hire out Banner educators to train them on the Banner LMS – including set-up, user training, and establishing KPI protocols.

• Assign a portal for each client on the Banner platform to store their own content.