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19 Apr 2022
medical training
Blogpost, eLearning creativ technologies 0 comment

Can medical training increase allied health care workers? 

The Covid pandemic, which brought the world to a standstill, has made many changes necessary. One of them is the regular medical training which can only ensure that the health care workers don’t quit. It has been true that health care workers gave their best during the critical times of the pandemic, but they were exhausted after a certain time. The reasons for their leaving jobs were an unexpectedly high number of hospitalizations and working during odd hours during this medical emergency.

Who are allied health care workers?

There has been a lack of talent in the medical sector, majorly in the allied health care sector. This branch of health care involves helping the doctor diagnose a disease. So this includes lab technicians and doctors who run laboratories. Without an X-ray or an ultrasound, it’s tough to determine why someone is ill. There are also assistants working with dentists who clean your mouth before he examines it.

The pandemic exposed the shortage of workers in the allied health care sector. It’s true that now there is an increased need for doctors’ assistants. They check whether the patient has any disease through an examination like an ophthalmologist’s assistant checks whether the patient has an eye problem by putting some eye drops. These kinds of people in allied health care save the time of a doctor who examines those patients who have some genuine problem. Doctors also get tests conducted on a patient for a preliminary analysis of his disease, like the reason for abdominal pain. This helps the medical practitioner prescribe the right medicine depending on the cause.

The medical system cannot run smoothly without the allied health care professionals. For example, a doctor who diagnoses a blood sample cannot do so accurately when the wrong one has been sent to him. Phlebotomists ensure that the blood is collected in the right amount and correctly marked before it reaches a doctor’s laboratory.

Why did the need for such workers heighten during the pandemic?

When the pandemic spread, there was a shortage felt for such allied health care workers who conducted the viral tests to find out whether someone had the virus or not.

Due to the unexpected situation of Covid19, the importance of these professions was realized. It’s because pharmacy assistants had to carry out the job of giving out the self-administered Covid-19 tests. The following were the major functions performed by the pharmacy technicians during the Covid-19 crisis:

  1. Telehealth calls

    2. Pharmacy technicians played such a great role during the pandemic because they ensured that patients took their medicines on time during telehealth calls. This made sure that the need for visiting patients at their homes was decreased, reducing the risk of infections. With licenses, these pharmacy technicians provided telehealth services like demonstrating to a person how to conduct a Covid-19 test. They also helped patients get better knowledge about the disease through telehealth calls. So this made sure that patients who had the symptoms didn’t have to visit doctors in person. The hospitality workers also had to be retrained to ensure that they could check who a foreign visitor was coming into contact with.

    The pharmacy technicians were even administering the vaccine during the pandemic. They were doing so when supervised by a pharmacist licensed by the state. So, there is a need for such workers in the future should the need arise.

  2. Remote order verification

Pharmacy technicians have also done remote order verification, which involves validating whether a prescription contains correct entries or not. If a patient has asked for medicine again, then the pharmacist technician can check whether he is buying the medicine too soon. He can check the previous orders of the medicine by the same patient on the PC. Due to remote order verification, the pharmacists can carry out the prescription verification of people living in far-off areas and supply medicines to them. During the pandemic, when the pharmacy technicians were working from home, the prescription verification was done on systems, and hence patients were supplied medicines. But medical training is vital for pharmacy technicians to use such systems. It also helped the pharmacist cope with the lack of technicians, which happened due to lockdowns because online working became easy due to medical training.

How can medical training help in getting such workers?

Medical training can ensure no scarcity of allied health care workers because it provides reskilling to them to prepare for their roles.

This kind of medical training imparted in videos can help these workers learn how to take blood specimens, for example. Elearning is a crucial form of medical training because such aspiring workers might not have time, or even their location might be too far from the place of offline education. Reskilling is also an important part of medical training for such roles. The medical clerks must be promoted to the allied health care workers’ roles. This retains such data entry workers and ensures that the nurses are not faced with an intolerable workload.

25 Mar 2022
elearning solutions
Blogpost, eLearning creativ technologies 0 comment

How is technology affecting elearning solutions?

The workplace has undergone a tremendous change ever since the pandemic struck. Extended reality(XR) is becoming a commonplace phenomenon, but what does it refer to. Extended reality includes all forms, including mixed reality, augmented, and virtual realities. All these technologies connect humans to PCs and change reality by immersing the learner in a new world(virtual reality), increasing his surroundings with virtual objects(augmented reality), or combining both(mixed reality).

What is mixed reality?

Mixed reality(MR) is the new form of technology in which the real and digital objects coexist.

So, in mixed reality, you can use objects from both the real and the virtual world. You could introduce objects from the real world into the virtual dimension, like hitting a character in a game with an object in your hand. The mixed reality ensures that when you are wearing the MR headset, you can place one of your hands in the real dimension and the other in the virtual world. But the mixed reality is helping organizations to produce innovative e-learning solutions.

It’s true that through the use of this technology, the students can be shown 3D projections. They can touch them and get to feel objects like dinosaurs. This kind of technology is even useful for teaching factory workers how to work on a machine because they can be shown a holographic template of the machine and arrange all its parts.

There can be an extended reality elearning solutions system that allows companies to provide training to employees irrespective of where they are.

So, the learners are shown holograms through an app on their phone, which also monitors their activities. The learners can be reached anywhere without any wired connection. The user can access the app through their smartphone and view the entire course in the form of holographic screens.

This mixed reality is going to be immensely useful in medical e-learning solutions.

The doctors could easily transfer files from their PCs and read them.

The engineers could work with 3D holograms of dams before executing anything. This could save the money spent on applying labor and materials to the actual construction. With an MR headset, the users can close the room’s virtual windows with their hands.

So, it’s unlike augmented reality, where virtual objects are overlaid into the real world like you could read the patient’s vital signs or even get to know his blood pressure. All this is possible through smartphones that have AR-based apps in them that scan real-world objects to add more details. For example, you can add so many accessories like wigs and hats on yourself when using the Snapchat filter. The AR technology can also simulate the empty cash register with loads of cash and gauge the employee’s reaction.

What is virtual reality?

Virtual reality is used to train the medical interns who can be given a headset and controllers to move virtual objects like medical objects on 3D simulated human body models. So, the intern has no cognizance of the real world while he is getting his VR based training.

When the learners are wearing the VR headset, they get transported into a new world like taking a stroll on the moon, so this technology is useful for teaching them about scientific concepts which can’t be recreated all the time, as the underwater life.

Advantages of virtual reality

No contact eLearning solutions: Virtual reality has become an essential part of employee eLearning solutions. The employees cant be indeed arranged together for an onboarding solution. So, recruits can be given practical training with virtual reality-based headsets where they can touch a machine. They can also be given the practice to talk to virtual humans who react similarly to us through such headsets only. The best part is that when such training sessions are recorded, HR can check the human feedback and know the areas where employees need learning. All the vital stats of an employee are measured when he is part of a virtual reality-based assessment.

Contactless interactions: It’s also possible with virtual reality that employees can attend parties whilst sitting at homes. They don’t have to worry about reaching home on time or even contracting an infection because physically, they are present at the house but virtually, at a party. The employees can take part in virtual games and virtual karaoke sessions. Such chats where employees have taken part through their avatars are excellent ways to break the ice and aid in relationship building.

Iron Man has often been seen using augmented reality where he works on a hologram-based diagram of his PC. He just uses his hands and moves the objects in a virtual dimension. Privacy will be a major concern when using XR technology. It’s because, at the end of the day, when MR devices simulate the real environment, they will have to be stored, which is costly. Also, privacy can be a major problem because any details about a user’s surroundings can’t be leaked.

21 Feb 2022
pharma elearning
Blogpost, eLearning creativ technologies 0 comment

How has globalization led to pharma elearning?

The world around us has become easily dependent on the e-learning industry. Pharma e-learning is truly revolutionary in this industry because it can ensure that the employees become acquainted with the latest compliance rules. Employees also get frustrated with employers who are unwilling to update them about the new rules. Elearning in the pharmaceutical industry has become a critical factor because it can determine whether medical devices are used correctly or not.

When the pharmaceutical companies provide training to their salespersons, they can assure that sales happen. Quick sales are important for such companies because of the short shelf life between product launch and its copying by the competitors.

These are the reasons why pharma e-learning is indispensable in this industry now:

Higher hiring of freelancers

Elearning can as be used to train freelance employees who are getting increased employment in this industry.

The reason why freelancers are getting such high employment is that they can modify their working hours. In certain countries, rules about overtime of employees are very stringent and, as such, prove to be costly for companies. Since freelancers can easily adapt their schedules as per the requirements of the companies without imposing any huge costs on them, they are preferable employees. When the company has just launched a new drug in the market and needs a worker to work overtime for making sales, freelancers are a better option. Sometimes, they are also a necessity in those countries where the company might not find any regular labor.

Since so many companies are entering global markets these days, it might not be plausible to find someone local at quick notice for sales. Hence, hiring a short-time employee might be a good solution for a company. Since the pharma companies hire temporary workers on such a large scale, elearning has become a prerequisite to training them. Elearning is a fast delivery mode and can get a company to rush up to its sales processes.

Need for localization due to globalization

Localization is also becoming a major requirement in the pharma industry. Since so many companies are selling their products internationally, they require someone to interact with the local employees.

This is only possible when someone is aware of the native language of such countries, and hence pharma e-learning imparts the knowledge of such languages.

It has been proved that Asian countries such as India, Russia, and China will be major buyers of international drugs, and here e-learning is necessary for imbibing their cultural and linguistic nuances for making sales.

In addition, there is an increased demand for imports of pharmaceuticals in developing countries and reduced domestic production, which can be attributed to a rise in incomes in these nations. The pharma companies have started understanding the importance of Middle-income countries for their sales, and hence a lot of research and development activities are now focused on them. Hence, there is an increased necessity for language training.

Apart from that, although the local labor is hired in such countries for making sales, it’s important that they are trained adequately in teaching customers. The sales executives must be trained diligently about the consumption of a drug. Therefore, e-learning unavoidably offers the best possibilities for standardized training about drug consumption.

The companies need to systematically train local sales executives because any translation error can cause losses when the consumer takes drugs in the wrong quantity.

Increasing access to local customers

Pharmacists in every country have to be given e-learning to deliver the best of explanations to patients and doctors. That’s why, e-learning is the new paradigm for them given the globalization of pharmaceutical companies.

Such training has to include questions about dosage levels and what can be the side effects caused due to wrong levels of consumption. Moreover, the pharmacists and the sales executives have to be precise and compassionate in dealing with patients who might not read the product instructions, such as the right dosage levels when they are ill. Hence, pharma companies have to enhance pharmacists’ communication and technical skills to make sales and become effective resources for them. Also, the sales executives have to be trained in how to use technology to reach out to customers trying to access them via apps.

More R&D is happening in developing countries

Research and development have also become an important need for such companies. It’s because, without the right formulation, effective drugs can’t be produced. With so much competition, companies have to invest in research and development. But R&D being a costly initiative, the companies have to hire the most efficient workers. The companies have to hone their skills through e-learning to effectively interact with departments like marketing as to what kinds of drugs are needed. Language training is crucial so that the R&D employees in the headquarters can understand a local marketing team and the concerns of patients. Language learning is also significant because pharma companies must serve people, and hence they must have knowledge about their requirements. In addition, such industry has to deal with functional pathways in every country, including the governments, so language training is crucial.

Is e-learning the right choice?

Elearning is a practical alternative for pharma companies because they can’t provide instructor-led training in every country. Apart from being too costly, this can also prove to be a location-centric problem. The learners might not be willing to travel.

Hence, e-learning localization is a great resource for them to provide training in all languages accessible on all devices.

29 Oct 2021
Pharma e-learning
Blogpost, eLearning creativ technologies 0 comment

Why is pharma e-learning crucial for a safe delivery and storage of medicines?

Pharma e-learning has become imperative for this industry because of so many changes. E-learning is preferred by doctors and patients alike because they suffer from a lack of time. There are also not so many doctors in the market who can impart such training. But even in spite that the learners need to have training for a smooth flow of operations because new products are introduced and without their knowledge employees will delay behind. These are the following conditions in which pharma e-learning is quite important:

  • To make the service providers administer the drug correctly:

Patents are useful for short periods because any other life sciences companies come up with alternatives. And hence the medical staff has to capitalize for the short time for which the patent is useful because after that the patients will start using the substitutes also.

Pharma e-learning ensures that the medical practitioners are trained about the utility of the new product so that the drug manufacturer does not lose valuable time from the product launch to the time it’s marketed.

  • When new medicines and devices are introduced like during the pandemic:

Pharmaceutical companies can train their staff through e-learning to meet high standards. It can improve the usability of medical devices and drugs by doctors who become aware of their side effects and the right prescribed amount. E-learning has also taken so much importance in the previous two years due to the pandemic where 60% more pharma organizations have started using it.

E-learning is also crucial for those companies which have to transport medicines because they can get destroyed during the flight. This became quite crucial during the COVID-19 pandemic because the support of the government across the world had to be enlisted.

The vaccine had to be transported under controlled temperatures because any exposure to the wrong temperature could lead to a decrease in the power of the medicine. Hence, a cold chain facility needs to be implemented from the manufacturer’s location to the service provider facility, including the transport conditions also.

Hence, e-learning is crucial in this sense for the air cargo service providers along with service providers responsible for administering the doses. The logistics industry needs to understand that the proper arrangement is necessary concerning the packaging of the medicines and their physical handling so that no harm is caused.

  • During medicine distribution:

CDC has prescribed some guidelines regarding the delivery of medicines, hence pharma e-learning is crucial for such companies while ensuring transport. Hence, pharmaceutical companies must ensure that the trucks used for medicine delivery are insulated. There should not be an improper delay in the transport of vaccines to prevent any harm.

The pharmaceutical distributors need to ensure that their staff is trained well and that the temperature inside the vehicle is used for transport should not hit zero because it means destroying the medicine. Hence, the staff should know how to use temperature monitoring equipment. It’s better, that if any medicine has been destroyed in transportation due to inadequate temperature, the distributor must inform the service provider.

A service provider has to check the condition of the medicine to see whether it’s damaged or not. It’s because although medicine has been put under the wrong temperature it might still not exhibit any signs of harm e.g. it’s not frozen.

How can service providers ensure that the vaccine is of a reliable quality?

How to prevent medicine damage?

It’s the job of a service provider to provide pharma e-learning to its staff. It can ensure that the staff is given SOPs which they can use in case any adversity happens which can affect the quality of the stored medicines. Such incidents can be in the form of natural disasters, problems with the equipment, etc. they should know how to get in touch with vaccine manufacturers for resupply once the stored medicine has been damaged.

They should also be aware of procedures for contacting equipment service providers in case there is any problem with the storage machines causing faults with the medicine.

Apart from pharma e-learning documented SOPs are useful in maintaining the storage facilities. The new employees at a service provider premises also have to be trained in proper storage practices. They can be introduced to such procedures as a part of their job-related onboarding given through pharma e-learning.

Whenever there is a modification in the storage procedures for medicines due to some new medicines added to the inventory, it’s time to again update the pharmaceutical e-learning content.

29 Jul 2021
Pharma elearning
Blogpost, eLearning creativ technologies 0 comment

How can pharma elearning help drug manufacturing companies?

Pharma e-learning is crucial these days when so many drugs get invented and approved every year.

The companies in this industry, make sure that the employees work efficiently so that they give their best performance. This way, the employees can get the best job aids for their work.

The basic challenge in the pharma industry is the continuous introduction of new drugs. The companies need to provide information about such new drugs to employees. The workforce must be trained to ensure that they can use such drugs. Although every sales personnel hired by these companies gets training about 1-3 months before the fieldwork, every time, this personnel can’t be gathered to get training about a new drug. That’s why a pharma LMS can be used to disburse all the information.

Some of the advantages for the pharma e-learning industry include:

Avoidance of medication errors: The drugs have to be administered in the right doses.

The FDA has given a proper definition of this kind of error known as a medication error. This kind of error can cause harm to a patient. According to the definition, the error in the consumption of the drug can happen when the doctor is preparing the prescription for it and enters the wrong dose amount.

Even when the patient is seeking telemedicine and the doctors type the wrong dosage amount on the PC. In case, the drug is being given to a patient, he can be provided with the wrong amount by the medical practitioner.

FDA has prescribed several rules for the consumption of these drugs which can prevent deaths and other kinds of harm caused due to an inappropriate dose. These harms include the victim suffering from a life-threatening condition or hospitalization as aftermath. Other serious consequences can also occur, such as when the drug is administered to a pregnant woman, it causes a defect in the unborn child.

So, the medical practitioners have to be provided with the right pharma elearning to prevent such costly mistakes from happening, which can harm the reputation of the drug manufacturer. The staff has to be elucidated on the FDA prevention measures for such errors which are:

  • Proper labels: There should be proper container labels on the drug so that it’s not confused with any other variant. Apart from that, there should be different labels for the drug components in different quantities. It’s because the patient may consume the wrong drug variant based on no quantity being mentioned on the label.
  • How should doctors prescribe the drug: The drug manufacturer should also ensure that the doctors have all the information about whom to prescribe the drug and the proper instructions to consume, i.e. Whether it should be taken before and after meals.

How much should be the time gap between different doses of the drug in a day. This information should be included in the imprint codes of the tablet.

This is important because otherwise the patient can get confused between tablets that have the same color, size, and shape. This kind of imprint code can include the manufacturer’s logo or the National Drug Code(10 digits in number). The strength of the drug included in the form of a number like 0.5mg of a substance contained in the drug is also preferred as an imprint instead of the manufacturer’s logo.

For example, a drug imprint can be in the form of M367. The letter M stands for the manufacturer’s name such as Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals.

The digits 0367, refer to the 4-digit code used to represent the drug manufacturer or the labeler. There are 3 other digits following these 4 digits used in the National Drug Code, which include the form of the drug whether its tablet, capsules, or liquid, and the strength of the drug i.e. quantity of substances. The last 2 digits included after the drug form represent how many tablets are present in a bottle of the medicine.

FDA has mandated that all oral drugs(whether OTC or prescription) should include this information. All this information has to be taught to the workers, especially the sales personnel of a drug manufacturer through pharma e-learning. Even such elearning can be arranged for doctors.

  • Bar code printed on drug bottles and stripes: FDA has also prescribed other rules so that there is no confusion in the consumption of drugs. These rules apply to drug manufacturers. As per these rules, there should be barcodes printed on the drug bottles so that healthcare professionals can check them before prescribing them to their new patients.

Such scanning of bar codes before prescriptions is important because new drugs with new substances are getting released into the market every day and the doctors might not know them. This bar code also contains information about the right dosage and the right way for the drug to enter the patient’s body, whether it’s through the nasal route or the mouth. Pharma e-learning makes drug manufacturers aware of such new rules.

  • Right packaging: The drug manufacturers, especially those who manufacture topical creams also have to know the new rules released by FDA relate to product packaging.

As per these new rules, the cream should be packaged in such a way, that the consumer does not confused about whether to put the cream in the eye or the ear or apply it on the skin.

If the cream is packaged in a bottle similar to that used for eyedrops the consumer can put it in the eye leading to severe implications. Again, pharma elearning can prevent such errors.

Similarly, if a drug has to be consumed orally, oral syringes are given for this purpose. If a liquid oral dosage accompanies this syringe, the markings on both should be in the same measurement standards as millimeters. With different measurement standards, like millimeters on the syringe and milliliters on liquid dosage, confusion can be caused for the consumers.

Again, sales personnel can solve this confusion by guiding the patient or drug companies should make sure that the measurement standards are the same. This is how pharma e-learning can save drug manufacturing companies from penalties. 

These penalties can be imposed when the patient suffers from an injury or a life-debilitating change after a medication error. So, if it is the fault of the drug manufacturing corporation, which does not conclude with the death of the victim, it can result in a penalty of $200,000.

 

 

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He was a German psychologist who is known for discovering the forgetting curve. According to this curve, the biggest decline in memory happens within 20 minutes, and then 1 hour.