The following relates generally to personalized training arts, healthcare staff training arts, health care staff training recommendation arts, data-driven model arts, hybrid model arts, performance improvement prediction arts, and related arts.
Healthcare is an active area with continuous developments in clinical knowledge and frequent new technology and new software releases. Therefore, healthcare staff members need proper and timely training on how to perform properly and efficiently in this rapidly changing environment to get optimal operational performance.
Meanwhile, under the pressure of reduced reimbursement and the shift to value-based healthcare, healthcare managers are under the pressure of providing better value with less cost. With associated cost of training and unproductive time of staff members during training, how to balance the benefit and cost of training is a challenge to healthcare managers.
In addition, different staff members may need personalized training due to differences in job duties, a priori knowledge, training retention, and other factors, making it difficult to find the optimal training time/content for all staff members. For example, a few professionals can make a mistake by recording the wrong procedure type, while other medical professionals often forget to record patient emergency status. It would be beneficial to identify who made frequent mistake (i.e., underperform) on which task to train the specific staff members on specific issue to gain the optimal improvement.
For example, in regards to medical imaging, with the continuous release of new features of automatic image reading capability, some imaging technicians such as sonographers or cardiologists could be unaware of them without timely training, or otherwise forget these features after a while.
The following discloses certain improvements to overcome these problems and others.
In one aspect, a non-transitory computer readable medium stores instructions executable by at least one electronic processor to perform a method of providing training content to medical professionals. The method includes: retrieving (i) historical data related to staff performance of staff members of a medical facility and (ii) training data about past training received by the staff members; computing key performance indicators (KPIs) for the staff members using the retrieved historical data; estimating, using the retrieved historical data, a first improvement score for the KPIs that is predicted to result from consumption of a corresponding training content unit; estimating a second improvement score for the KPIs based on information related to requirements or goals for training the staff members; combining the first and second improvement scores to generate a combined score; and generating one or more recommended training content units based on the combined score and the retrieved training data.
In another aspect, a non-transitory computer readable medium stores instructions executable by at least one electronic processor to perform a method of providing training content to medical professionals. The method includes: retrieving (i) historical data related to staff performance of staff members of a medical facility and (ii) training data about past training received by the staff members; computing KPIs for the staff members using the retrieved historical data; estimating, using the retrieved historical data, a first improvement score for the KPIs that is predicted to result from consumption of a corresponding training content unit, the estimating including inputting the retrieved data into a data driven model; estimating a second improvement score for the KPIs based on information related to requirements or goals for training the staff members; combining the first and second improvement scores to generate a combined score as a weighted combination of the first improvement score and the second improvement score; and generating one or more recommended training content units based on the combined score and the retrieved training data.
In another aspect, a non-transitory computer readable medium stores instructions executable by at least one electronic processor to perform a method of providing training content to medical professionals. The method includes: retrieving (i) historical data related to staff performance of staff members of a medical facility and (ii) training data about past training received by the staff members; computing KPIs for the staff members using the retrieved historical data; estimating, using the retrieved historical data, a first improvement score for the KPIs that is predicted to result from consumption of a corresponding training content unit; estimating a second improvement score for the KPIs based on information related to requirements or goals for training the staff members; combining the first and second improvement scores to generate a combined score; generating one or more recommended training content units based on the combined score and the retrieved training data; providing a manager user interface (UI) at an electronic device operable by a manager of the medical facility, the UI including fields to display the KPIs and a list of the recommended content units with corresponding combined scores; and displaying a list of the recommended content units for a staff member on an electronic device operable by the staff member.
One advantage resides in tailoring training units to individual medical professionals.
Another advantage resides in improving productivity of medical professionals after receiving tailored training.
Another advantage resides in monitoring individual medical professionals' behaviors to recommend appropriate training units.
Another advantage resides in providing training units to be completed when the corresponding medical professional is available.
Another advantage resides in providing training content recommendations on the basis of both historical data on staff members' performance and past training, and also predicted improvement in key performance indicators (KPIs) due to consuming the training content.
A given embodiment may provide none, one, two, more, or all of the foregoing advantages, and/or may provide other advantages as will become apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art upon reading and understanding the present disclosure.
The disclosure may take form in various components and arrangements of components, and in various steps and arrangements of steps. The drawings are only for purposes of illustrating the preferred embodiments and are not to be construed as limiting the disclosure.
The following relates to targeted providing of healthcare training. When a new product or software upgrade is released, training is usually provided. However, this can be insufficient if the hospital is experiencing staff turnover, or if the training should be repeated at intervals either to improve retention or to meet regulatory requirements or goals.
The disclosed system collects information about staff performance, such as for specific key performance indicators (KPIs), and staff training. Such information is fed into a data driven model that estimates an improvement score for each KPI that is predicted to result from consumption of a particular training unit. The modeling includes data driven models for each (KPI, training unit) pair, and the model can be applied for each staff member based on inputs including performance and training records of that staff member.
While such a data driven modeling approach is useful, it may be limited if the source data is deficient (for example, a newly hired employee, or deficiencies in the hospital's record-keeping). Accordingly, a second, rules-based model can be employed. This model can capture information such as regulatory or hospital requirements or goals for training (e.g., a particular training unit must be repeated every three years). The rules-based model can also be useful where data for using the data-driven model is deficient.
To combine the scores for a (KPI, training unit) pair generated by the data-driven model and the rules-based model, a hybrid model employs a weighted combination of the data-driven and rules-based scores. The relative weights for the two scores may be set based on a metric of quality of the data supplied to the data-driven model, the strength of the rules (e.g., a mandatory rule may result in the rules-based score being assigned a very high weight), or may be set manually by an administrator.
A computer-implemented performance monitoring/training recommendation module takes as input staff members' KPIs and training data, and the scores generated by the hybrid model, and generates training recommendations. A manager's user interface (UI) provides information such as the historical KPIs for specific staff members and predictions on potential improvement due to a training unit (determined by the scores of the hybrid model) and costs for the training unit. The manager's UI allows the manager to select specific KPIs to display.
A staff UI is also provided, via which a staff member can update his or her training history if information is not captured by the data mining. The staff UI also provides the staff member with a record of training performed and training scheduled or overdue.
With reference to
The server computer 12 is also in communication with a second remote electronic processing device 18′ operable by one or more members of the manager's team. The staff electronic processing device 18′ can be any suitable electronic processing device, such as a workstation computer (or more generally a computer), a smartphone, a tablet, and so forth. For illustrative purposes, in
The server computer 12 can be in communication with the manager workstation 18, and the staff workstation 18′ via a communication link 15 which typically comprises the Internet augmented by local area networks at the manager and staff ends for electronic data communications.
The database 14 of the server computer 12 stores records related to job performance of the medical professionals (e.g., task lists, reviews, performance evaluations, experience records, and so forth) on the manager's team. Data related to training of new or existing team members is also stored in the database 14. In addition, a plurality of training content units 30 for training the staff members are stored in the database 14. One or more modules are implemented by the electronic processor 16 of the server computer 12 to push recommended content units 30 to the staff electronic processing device (s) 18′.
With further reference to
In addition, the extraction module 32 is also configured to extract historical and current training activities of the staff members. This data can be retrieved from an electronic training documentation database 36. Data processing (e.g. data cleaning, key word matching, NLP or manual entry) could be used to make this dataset structured with elements of the staff members (i.e., staff ID or name), time of training, and content of training.
The staff data and the operational data extracted by the extraction module 32 can be linked by the name of the staff member performing the operation, by a shared ID, or by a linkage file storing paired staff IDs. A quality check operation can be implemented in case of common or unmatched names or IDs. The extraction module 32 is also configured to retrieve or extract training guidelines 38 stored in the database 14 using an automatic method (e.g., NLP) or manual entry via the manager using the manager workstation 18 to build rules of training conditions and content of training if condition is met.
A building or generation module 40 is configured to build a training recommendation model. The building module 40 is programmed to use a data-driven model 42 and a rules-based model 44 to generate a hybrid training recommendation model 46. The hybrid model 46 is used to find training contents unit 30, content for the training content units, and the effectiveness of training content units.
The historical staff performance data and the historical training activities data extracted by the extraction module 32 are input to the data-driven model 42 at different time intervals. The data-driven model 42 can be generated by the building module 40 using, for example, machine-learning (ML) algorithms (e.g., classification algorithms, regression algorithms, and so forth) and/or deep-learning (DL) algorithms (such as a recurrent neural network (RNN)) to predict training needed (i.e., classification) and potential improvement (i.e., regression). Features to build the data-driven model 42 could be selected using, for example, a best subset method or a Lasso regularization operation. A scaled score, (s1), (e.g. 0-100) can be a weighted average based on the potential improvement (s11) and the confidence score (s12) calculated, along with their respective weights (w11) and (w12) according to Equation 1:
s
1
=w
11
·s
11
+w
12
·s
12, where w11+w12=1 (1)
The rules-based model 44 is used to generate rules as to whether training is needed or not (i.e., a yes/no output) and a scaled score, (s2), is calculated to reflect the percentage difference with a cut-off threshold.
The data-driven model 42 and the rules-based model 44 are combined by the building module 40 to generate the hybrid model 46 with a weighted average score. Via the manager workstation 18, the manager has the ability to assign weights (w1 and w2) to the hybrid model 46 with informed knowledge of automated weight suggestion from a training data quality assessment (e.g. a lower weight of (w1) with limited training data for a data-driven method), according to Equation 2:
s=w
1
·s
1
+w
2
·s
2, where w1+w2=1 (2)
The data-driven model 42 predicts training that is normally performed at specific time intervals with varying KPIs based on previous practice. The rules-based model 44 predicts training that should be performed based on predefined rules. If the extracted historical data is of good quality (e.g. a large amount of data from the healthcare organization with good training practice), more weight or trust can be put to data-driven model 42; while if the historical data is of poor quality (e.g. limited data from small regional hospital), more weight or trust can be put into the rule-based model 44. Optionally, default weights may be assigned automatically based on information such as the amount of data input to the data-driven model, quality metrics of that data, or other available information, and the manager has the option of changing the default weights.
A recommendation module 50 is configured to monitor staff performance and suggest needed training (i.e., specific content units selected from the content units 30). To do so, the recommendation module 50 is configured to monitor current operational performance of the staff members in real-time, and suggest who need training and which content units 30 should be recommended. Using the data extracted by the extraction module 32 and the hybrid model 46 generated by the building module 40, the recommendation model is configured to extract and monitor data related to the performance of the staff members in their operational and/or clinical tasks. When the monitored performance data falls below a predetermined threshold, or if a training rule is satisfied, the recommendation module 50 is configured to recommend one or more corresponding training content units 30. The recommended content units 30 are tailored for each staff member based on that staff member's performance in different operations or topics. A potential improvement in a staff member's performance, after consuming the recommended content unit(s) 30 can be estimated or predicted based on the data-driven model 42. This performance forecasting can also be used to predict future content units 30 to be recommended. Such methods for performance forecasting can include, for example, time series forecasting, multivariate regression, recurrent neural networks, and/or other combined methods. In this way, future recommended content units 30 can be predicted ahead of time to plan activities earlier for the manager and staff members.
A user interface (UI) generation module 60 is configured to generate respective UIs 28 and 28′ for the manager and the staff members on the respective electronic processing devices 18 and 18′. By way of non-limiting illustrative example, on the GUI 28, a field is provided which shows performance improvement if suggested training is adopted (i.e., the recommended content units 30 are consumed by the corresponding staff members). Based on the estimated performance improvement of suggested training, the manager can better decide based on the return on investment (ROI). In addition, on the GUI 28, rule-based training guidelines can be modified (e.g., adding new rules, deleting rules, changing rules, and so forth) based on the manager's preference.
On the staff GUI 28′, the respective staff members can manually (e.g., via the at least one user input device 22′) enter their training history if missed by the system. In addition, staff members can visualize which content units 30 have been consumed, and which content units are scheduled or overdue.
With reference to
At an operation 102, data is retrieved from one or more databases. The retrieved data can include (i) historical data related to staff performance of the staff members of the medical facility and (ii) training data about past training received by the staff members. The retrieving operation 102 can be performed by the extraction module 32.
At an operation 104, one or more KPIs are computed for the staff members using the retrieved historical data. The computing operation 104 can be performed by the extraction module 32.
At an operation 106, a first improvement score is estimated for the KPIs using the retrieved historical data. The first improvement score is predicted to result from consumption of a corresponding training content unit 30. The first estimating operation 106 can be performed by the building module 40.
In some examples, the first estimating operation 106 includes inputting the retrieved data (from the operation 102) into the data-driven model 42. The first improvement score comprises an output of the data-driven model 42. In other embodiments, the data-driven model 42 comprises a plurality of data-driven models corresponding to the number of KPIs calculated at the calculating operation 104. The retrieved data from the retrieving operation 102 is input into each data-driven model 42 to generated KPI-content unit pairs. The first improvement score is based on the KPI-content unit pairs. A first improvement score can be determined for each staff member based on data related to performance and training records for each staff member.
At an operation 108, a second improvement score is estimated for the KPIs based on information related to requirements or goals for training the staff members. The second estimating operation 108 can be performed by the building module 40. (It is noted that the order of the operations 106 and 108 can be reversed, or if sufficient computing capacity is available then the operations 106 and 108 can be performed concurrently).
At an operation 110, the first and second improvement scores are combined to generate a combined score. In some embodiments, the first and second improvement scores are combined for each KPI-content unit pair. In other embodiments, the combining operation 110 includes generating the combined score as a weighted combination of the first improvement score and the second improvement score. In one example, the weights for the weighted combination can include a metric of quality of the retrieved historical data. In another example, the weights for the weighted combination can include a strength setting of the requirements or goals for training the staff members. In a further example, the weights for the weighted combination can include a manual entry of the weights by the manager via the at least one user input device 22.
At an operation 112, one or more recommended training content units 30 are generated based on the combined score and the retrieved training data.
In some embodiments, the computing operation 104, the estimating operations 106 and 108, the combining operation 110, and the generating operation 112, can be performed for each individual staff member to recommend training content units 30 for each individual staff member. In this embodiment, the generating operation 112 is further based on a cost of delivering the training content units to the individual staff members.
At an operation 114, a GUI 28, 28′ is provided at a corresponding electronic processing device 18, 18′. In some embodiments, the GUI 28 includes fields to display the KPIs and a list of the recommended content units 30 with corresponding combined scores. In other embodiments, the GUI 28′ includes a list of the recommended content units 30 for the staff members.
The disclosure has been described with reference to the preferred embodiments. Modifications and alterations may occur to others upon reading and understanding the preceding detailed description. It is intended that the exemplary embodiment be construed as including all such modifications and alterations insofar as they come within the scope of the appended claims or the equivalents thereof.
This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 63/075,855 filed on Sep. 9, 2020. This application is hereby incorporated by reference herein.
Number | Date | Country | |
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63075855 | Sep 2020 | US |