Discover how Tallaght University Hospital embraced its internal policies, procedures, and guidelines through online learning.
Tallaght University Hospital (TUH) is an academic teaching hospital, providing patient care on-site and outside the campus boundaries. Funded by the Health Service Executive (HSE), it has 600 beds and over 3,200 staff, serving a catchment area of 650,000 people.
For this project, we were tasked to design and develop an online course about creating Policies, Procedures, Protocols and Guidelines (PPPGs). Our award-winning team of Instructional Designers transformed the hospital’s internal policy creation process into an interactive learning experience.
This will help some of the TUH staff to learn about all the internal PPPGs and resources available to improve hospital standards, and most importantly, to lead the organisation into delivering better patient outcomes.
“We needed to update both, the content and delivery style of our training programme, and the proposed solution, resources, graphics and interactions provided by Cobblestone were exactly what we were looking for”
the result? see it by yourself:
Designing the learning programme
Our team of instructional designers reviewed the classroom materials provided by TUH, and identified what people needed to do and created an online course that would prepare them for that.
We know TUH staff may do lots of activities as part of their roles and authoring PPPGs is not always their top priority. From the beginning of the project we looked at how to best show off the benefits of the training to these busy staff members and create a realistic and engaging environment from which they could understand the process better and develop their own expertise.
We used this insight as a focus to create the flow of the course and author the content. We also used the ‘engage, study, practice, summarise’ model as a basis for our learning design.
ENGAGE
To provide a quick snap-shot introduction of the course, we obtained drone footage of the hospital’s installations.
We branded the video in line with the course, including voiceover and graphics to add clarity.
As well as providing an energetic start, it informs learners of what the course is about and the background to the topic.
STUDY
Each of the ‘Study’ elements in the course are concise and relevant to each learning objective.
We designed experiences to focus the learner’s energy on the things they really need to know at each point, and nothing more.
The interactive nature of the content allows TUH learners to better engage with and retain the information presented.
PRACTICE
We provided ‘Practice’ exercises as close to the real-life experience as possible, to help TUH learners recall their knowledge about PPPGs when they will need it.
Imagery and vocabulary that mirrors the learner’s work environment was used to devise realistic scenarios.
SUMMARISE
As a final round up at the end of the course, we incorporated ‘Summary’ elements as feedback to knowledge check questions.
This provides a mechanism for learners to check their comprehension and consolidates the key points from the learning material.
Instructional design with a purpose
To turn the PPPG authoring process into an active learning experience, where TUH staff could get engaged with the subject matter, we designed activities that needed conscious decision making and active participation from learners.
For each step in the PPPG development, we created a first-person scenario where learners need to take decisions at different points; according to their choices, they obtain customised feedback.
This way we provided TUH learners a safe learning environment, where they could practice the PPPG development process before the stage in their learning process which are the complimentary face-to-face training sessions.
“The scenarios Cobblestone came up with were very innovative. They looked at our subject matter with fresh eyes and created these interactions that made a big difference”
Authored with articulate rise
We acknowledged how important it was to TUH to deliver a high-standard, tablet friendly and interactive learning solution to all their staff members, so we used Articulate Rise to bring this project to life.
One of the main reasons we developed this course in Rise, was to seamlessly incorporate customised videos with the scenario-based experiences. This way we turned the PPPG materials into practical activities.
- Its responsiveness allows the course to be viewed on any device
- Simple learner navigation balance with elegant visual design
- Easy review feature allowing for a speedy process of communication between TUH and us.
- WCAG 2.1 Complaint for accessibility
Learning that Delivers results
Nowadays, TUH staff is providing their teams an engaging online course that will help them to be familiar with the internal PPPGs as well as the processes and systems involved.
This course is an important part of their overall strategy to “Provide care based on best practice and support our staff in lifelong learning.”
“Working with Cobblestone was fabulous, they were phenomenal. There was always an educational sense from Cobblestone and we relied heavily on them in designing this eLearning programme."
Let's work together in your next project!
Get in touch with us to learn more about our solutions and discuss how we can partner with you: