Online Training Tips for Busy Healthcare Professionals:

It is essential that healthcare professionals are fully trained, with ongoing development throughout their careers as they are responsible for the well-being of others. This is unfortunately an expensive and time-consuming procedure, but thanks to online training, the cost can be significantly reduced. But how to keep the attention of your audience? Here are five ways to get you started:

• Make use of graphics and visuals when presenting: Giving countless of pages filled with information is a guaranteed way to lose the interest of your students – especially busy healthcare professionals. Keeping them engaged with videos, images, and graphics will not only make things more interesting, but also easier to remember.

• Understand what you teach: Be sure you know exactly what you are teaching and do not read all the information from a handbook. Try to understand what you teach and how you can improve your methods along the way. Trying to just stuff everything in a course will result in the loss of interest.

• Implement scenario-based learning methods: Scenario-based learning is a useful tool for healthcare professionals to test new skills and processes without risk. Practice, practice, practice!

• Consider your target audience: If the training course is something you want to be implemented nationwide, keep the location non-specific. Think about whether it would be necessary to insert video subtitles or descriptions for images as an international audience might need more help to understand your local images.

• Engage with your audience through interactive elements: add things like quizzes or games to your course so that your audience keeps engaged and interested. Another useful tool is webinars, where the audience can engage with professionals and ask questions. Be sure to record these webinars and make it available for later viewing, as healthcare professionals work irregular hours.

Compiled by Daniel Schoonderwoerd (Foundation for Professional Development) and edited by Liz Wolvaardt (AHPEL).

For more information, please take a look at the following resource: Five Tips for Successful Online Training for Healthcare Professionals (intuto.com)