ET: How effective are digital learning solutions for hospitals and healthcare professionals?
Deepak Sharma: Hospital workers operate under challenging work conditions, with unexpected demands on their time being the norm rather than the exception. Besides, medical knowledge is doubling every 73 days, while human attention span and knowledge retention capabilities remain the same. This calls for an entirely different approach to train healthcare workers. The solutions need to optimise the time investment, enable self-paced learning and ensure knowledge retention and application at the point of care.
Healthcare organisations also need to manage a complex canvas of training and learning priorities by ensuring compliance with National Accreditation Board for Hospitals & Healthcare Providers (NABH) norms, ongoing patient risk identification posed by poorly trained staff, staff growth and development, and implementing training aimed at creating a culture of service excellence and good patient experience. A full-stack solution like MedLern meets these challenges and delivers big gains to hospitals.
MedLern maximises the advantages of the digital approach by automating and innovating in several key areas of healthcare training — time and efficiency management, employee engagement and motivation, compliance management, knowledge and performance improvement and ongoing assessments. Its design philosophy combines the best of classroom and self-paced learning strategies to deliver the maximum ROI to the hospital business.
ET: Can you provide some use cases for implementing digital learning in the healthcare sector?
DS: Digital learning innovation spans the entire spectrum of clinical, soft skills, compliance-oriented training (NABH mandated), and continuous professional development like CNE (continuing nursing education) and CME (continuing medical education) which are essential to a well-running healthcare setup.
Innovations like micro-learning, adaptive learning and simulation-based training are helping make the best use of available time for busy healthcare professionals while maximising the impact on improved learning outcomes, knowledge retention and demonstrable, measurable improvement in outcomes.
The complexity of healthcare training necessitates digital innovation. The benefits of deploying digital learning solutions in healthcare training include improved patient experience and safety, which can lead to increased retention, conversion and profitability for hospitals. The use of digital learning solutions can also help reduce risk events, such as negligence claims and loss of reputation. It also improves compliance with quality accreditation norms while significantly reducing the cost of time and materials invested.
ET: What are the limitations of digital learning solutions?
DS: Digital learning solutions often face resistance from an outdated mindset. Some think of digital versus traditional methods of learning as a zero-sum game. In reality, digital tools can enhance and amplify the impact of in-person training without compromising quality. Some of the harder problems of propagating cultural change and accelerating learning adoption, which have stumped traditional learning approaches, have been solved by innovations in digital like adaptive and microlearning. Digital learning solutions can much more effectively employ adult learning principles and deliver gains that traditional learning approaches have struggled with.ET: What is the status of digital learning solutions in healthcare in India and how can we enhance it?
DS: Healthcare has been very warm to digital learning solutions by recognising the cost efficiency and scalability of the digital approach. The disruption during Covid sent alarm bells ringing about the impact of poorly trained staff. It jolted many HR, quality and clinical leaders to recognise the risk they were running by not being able to drive their training in a systematic and structured manner. It also exposed a gap of skilled trainers in the ecosystem.
We have seen a dramatic improvement in hospitals within 90 days of implementing MedLern’s solution. Increase in staff participation rates demonstrates a clear, measurable improvement in targeted learning. Part of the success is because of innovations like microlearning, Indian language content and other features.
The other ingredient in successful hospitals has been the analytics that senior management uses from MedLern to identify gaps in individuals, teams and departments and the best practices we share with them. The transparency around training’s impact motivates leaders to take action and encourages widespread adoption.
ET: How has business been for MedLern this financial year and what revenues did it clock last financial year?
DS: We have been on a steady upward path clocking an annual recurring revenue (ARR) of $1 million last financial year and looking to grow even further in the current financial year and beyond. Already, we have served over 400 hospitals and 150 nursing colleges, and trained over one lakh learners in a rather short period. Not resting on our laurels, we expect to achieve our goal of serving 1,000 hospitals by the second half of 2024 alone.
