That’s what we were wondering when we began the development of learning resources to support patient-centered care enabled through health IT way back in the fall of 2012.

Led by the belief that the hard work of transformation to a patient centered team-based care modelwould require new education and training, the project team at Cuyahoga Community College  began to map out exactly what that looked like. The end result was an education program that involved:

• A robust competency framework designed for specific health care roles and responsibilities
• Learning resources mapped to those competencies
• e-learning modules
• Learning resources mapped to those competencies

Beginning with the end-in-mind, we convened a meeting of early adopters and innovators and asked the question:

“If you were working with a practice that was moving forward towards the implementation of a patient-centered medical home, what additional knowledge, skills and abilities would be required of your workforce?”

Better Health Greater Cleveland , facilitated discussion with these early adopters to determine the core competencies needed for:

• Implementing a PCMH model
• Accelerating the demonstration Meaningful Use
• Establishing Health Information Exchange
• Population Management & Data Analytics

We then asked the question; “What would traditional roles within a practice need to know and be able to do to adapt to this new model care?” The answers became the foundation for our workforce competency framework development.

How Important are Competencies in Readying the HealthCare Workforce for Transformation?

Transformation is a journey. Not every practice, or team member, begins that journey with the same levels of skill and ability. By providing the “roadmap” for workforce support of transformation, individuals can locate themselves on the framework and begin to understand what additional knowledge and skills will be required of them to facilitate delivery of better health and better care at a reduced cost.

As such, secondary frameworks were developed with resources aligned to learning outcomes. Want to be able to describe the benefits of a medical home, or explore how your role engages with a patient-centered medical home model? The learning resources contained within these frameworks will support that need.

Building upon nationally available work that has already produced excellent resources targets quality materials for end users in the context of what they need and want to know.

E-learning Available to Support Transformation Now!

Since the nursing role proved to be critical to the proper functioning of a patient-centered medical home, we focused electronic training modules or “E-learning modules”, on helping answer the question, “What is my role as a nurse in transformation?”

Designed for online delivery in “bite-sized” pieces of 5, 10 and 15 minute modules, learning is available from foundational understanding of the patient-centered medical home, to team-based cared, patient self-management, quality improvement and change management. Many of the modules also contain helpful tools such as:

• Theory in to Practice. (TIPs) – These scenario-based cases help the learner apply content learned in real-world situations further strengthening their understanding of transformation.
• “Taking Action” worksheets. – Downloadable materials to engage learners as they consider how to implement and apply the content they explored in their practice, or a practice they might work in, to support PCMH transformation.

While these learning modules were designed for nurses, they were crafted for maximum flexibility so they may be leveraged across practice roles.

How to Access the Frameworks and Aligned Learning Resources

Check out the HealthIT.gov site for links to all of the frameworks and aligned resources. In addition, the E-learning resources  are available for immediate use by accessing and clicking on the “Readying the Healthcare Workforce for Transformation” button.

These frameworks can ignite discussion and planning resulting in a well-prepared health care workforce. We know that continued dialogue and strong relationships between colleges, universities, health care employers and workforce stakeholders will be essential to further the development of a pipeline of future and incumbent workers ready to support a truly transformed health care system.

Have questions or feedback? E-mail Norma Morganti at norma.morganti@tri-c.edu, Executive Director, Health IT at Cuyahoga Community College.

Look for more information on “Practice Transformation: RECs Partnering with Providers Like You” during health IT week.

To learn more, check out our new workforce pages on HealthIT.gov.