Mobile Device Based Nursing Training for Digital Workforce

According to Mercer, a human resources consulting firm, the US will need to hire 2.3 million new healthcare workers by 2025 in order to take care of people in underserved areas and its aging population. The shortage includes nurse practitioners, nursing assistants and home health aides. Healthcare workers such as experienced nurses are retiring at a rapid clip and there are not enough graduates to replenish the workforce.

We are proposing an interactive training platform to train and certify healthcare workers quickly and efficiently while maintaining strict quality controls. Our platform enables video based training as well as virtual classroom training and Telemedicine.

By shrinking the gap for qualified healthcare workers, we will be able to reduce the burnout of existing healthcare workers resulting in better outcomes for patients.

Mercer estimated that by 2025 there will be 400,000 new nursing assistant positions, nearly 51,500 new nurse practitioner openings and there will be a shortage of 446,300 home health aides, but there will not be nearly enough skilled workers to fill those roles. This shortage is likely to affect the Medically Underserved Areas and Populations (MUA/P) the most. It is estimated that nearly 20 million people in MUA/P will be directly impacted by the shortage of qualified healthcare professionals.

Digital Training Solutions that accelerate the training and certification of healthcare professionals are required to shrink the gap. These solutions must leverage the latest in mobile and digital technologies to deliver training quickly and cost -effectively while maintaining the highest quality standards. Video based training modules, virtual classrooms and Telemedicine will have to be incorporated into the curriculum in nursing schools.

Ability to recruit nursing students from remote areas and train them to render healthcare remotely using digital tools become integral part of the digital training platform. Telemedicine becomes a key training tool as the students engage remotely with patients in their homes on their mobile devices.

We are working with nursing schools to understand what parts of the nursing training can be conducted digitally using video based training, virtual classrooms and Telemedicine. Unlike other industries, healthcare is very high touch and requires a high degree of patient engagement. While the entire curriculum cannot be virtual, given the current state of technology there are several parts of the curriculum that can be virtualized. It is also understood that more and more healthcare services will leverage Telemedicine. It becomes important for nursing students to be comfortable with Telemedicine and use it as part of their training program.

By utilizing a state of the art digital platform to provide virtual training to nursing students, universities and colleges will be able to recruit students without necessarily increasing their brick and mortal infrastructure. Moreover, colleges will be able to train students remotely on their mobile devices. Nursing students will even be able to collect vitals and remotely monitor "patient actors" as part of their training. Students will be able to conduct Telemedicine sessions as part of their training either remotely from their mobile devices or from a physical location such as a community hospital.

The Health Wizz platform has three components.

1) An application developed on ServiceNow platform that enables (i) clinicians and students to conduct Telemedicine sessions with patients and (ii) design patient engagement programs for remotely interacting with patients.

2) Health Wizz mobile application for nursing students and patients. With the mobile app, nursing students can complete video based training modules or participate in virtual classroom training. Students can complete the curriculum at their own pace with video modules while participating in Telemedicine training and virtual classrooms. 

For patients, the mobile app becomes a tool to digitally engage and interact with clinicians and nursing students. Patients can be engaged by inviting them to complete a series of milestones. For example, as part of meeting a milestone, patients can connect Wearables and Bluetooth monitoring devices to the Health Wizz app so that their vitals can be monitored remotely. Additionally, patients can complete milestones such as completing digital health surveys and participating in Telemedicine sessions. Optionally, patients can be rewarded for completing milestones with Amazon gift card or badges and trophies.

3) Communications service hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS) that lets patients and clinicians interact using voice, video and screen sharing from within the Health Wizz application on ServiceNow platform. Colleges can use this service to conduct virtual classroom training and also design programs for patient engagement. Students can be rewarded with badges and trophies for completing education milestones and patients can be rewarded with Amazon gift cards, badges and trophies for compliance and adopting better health habits.