Empowering the team by adding value to their CPD

Feeling fired up about CPD?

Don’t you just love that feeling you have when you come out of a CPD lecture theatre or you have completed an assignment for an interactive CPD course.  You’re all fired up with the difference you can make to the clinical outcomes of your patients, improvements in efficiency that will make your colleagues’ lives easier or improve practice profitability.

What happens to that fire, that spark, when you get back to the practice?  Does everyone gather round in wonder at your weekly team meeting to listen to the new innovation?  Do they all nip out and start using the new protocol and ideas? What about next week and the next month and when a new person starts?  How are these new learnings, these fires of professional inspiration kept alight among a busy team.

Unfortunately, we are all so busy that many of those sparks fizzle along the way.  This means the practice does not benefit from the CDP in which they have invested, and unfortunately, previously inspired team members can become complacent and disengaged.  Why bother if it doesn’t change anything?

Implementing your CPD

How can you keep the spark alive? – Implementation of CPD learning

One of the benefits of the interactive courses provided by Oncore Online Learning is that you come away with something tangible. For example, a protocol for deep cleaning theatre, protocols and checklists for running geriatric clinics or a proposal for setting up a dermatology clinic.

This is a big step forward from leaving a lecture with an exciting spark of an idea.  What you have here is the means of communicating a whole a well formulated plan which, can be implemented and make a difference to your patients, your team and your business.

Hang on, how are you going to ensure all your team are aware of and signed up to the plan?

Here is another stumbling block which may diffuse the spark.  Just because there is a protocol, doesn’t mean people will use it, or even know about it.

Ideally, your protocol needs to be considered as part of a Quality or Continuous Improvement meeting.  This will allow scrutiny by your colleagues.  They may have their own ideas and contributions to make – even better.

For guidance on creating a vibrant QI or CI process we recommend you check the RCVS knowledge website.

How can Training Progress help?

However, the last piece in the jigsaw is the final communication and the perpetuation of the protocol through ongoing training.  This is where a process and training management programme like Training-Progress come in.  Training-Progress has been described as the final piece of the continuous improvement puzzle.

Once agreed, the process can be uploaded to the platform, which functions as an online practice manual.  It is then integrated into the training programme of all relevant team members.  Your team members will then see it, comment on it and sign off on it or be assessed by a trainer.  Once signed off, you have proof of training; seriously useful for RCVS PSS inspections.  In addition, the protocol is easily accessed for future reference.

As it is integrated into the training programmes of future team members, anyone new joining the team will be trained in the protocol too, so you don’t lose or dilute the knowledge.

What happens once your protocol is implemented?

That is not it for your protocol though, it is important that you are measuring success and uptake and that the protocols itself is subject to regular review.  Training-Progress reminds you to review your protocols on an annual basis, so you are reminded to flip it back into your CI meeting at that time.

• How are we doing?
• Are we achieving our goal?
• Is everyone still using this protocols?
• Are there any improvements we could make?
• Could we introduce any additional learning resources to make this easier to learn or remember?

What about when you have been to a lecture or webinar and you have come away with a few choice nuggets of information?  How are you communicating those to the team?  Having regular team or CI meetings is ideal for this, but even then, the information needs to go somewhere.  Use the meetings to develop a protocol, but then it needs writing down.  It needs sharing.  It needs to be part of new team member training and it needs on-going review and refinement.  Once again, a process and training management platform will make this process easy.

So, don’t let your team members’ CPD spark go out.  Build in a process to ensure those CPD fires stay alight, add true value to your CPD budget and keep your team members ‘fired up’ and engaged.

If you would like to learn more about Training-Progress, please CLICK HERE to book a discovery call.

Article contributed by Laura Shaw MRCVS, Training Progress.