The ROI of Online MEDITECH Training: Achieve Cost Savings and Efficiencies with eLearning
For hospitals and health systems using MEDITECH’s Expanse EHR, staff training requires a significant investment of time and resources.
Whether you’re rolling out a new MEDITECH Expanse implementation, migrating to a new version like Expanse 2.2, or just managing ongoing employee training and onboarding, keeping everyone up to speed often requires thousands of hours in traditional classroom training each year.
At MedPower, our eLearning solution helps hospitals slash EHR training costs by incorporating online EHR learning into your training strategy. For hospitals that still rely solely on in-person training, we recognize that it can be challenging to change the culture and justify a new investment in eLearning resources. However, the cost savings, reduced burden on support resources, and overall improvement to the end-user learning experience make eLearning a necessity in today's training strategy.
After working with MEDITECH customers for nearly a decade, we’ve proven that partnering with MedPower consistently generates hard- and soft-cost savings that can more than pay for your total investment in online learning.
In this blog post, we’ll break down how we calculate the potential cost savings, or return on investment (ROI), of a partnership with MedPower. We’ll also explore the organization benefits you can expect beyond just financial returns – what we like to call “Efficiencies on Investment” (EOI).
Understanding the Full Scope of MEDITECH Training Costs
At MedPower, we've developed a comprehensive approach to help healthcare organizations understand their potential cost savings and efficiency gains from implementing online training.
Our analysis typically focuses on three common scenarios:
New MEDITECH Expanse implementations
Implementing a new EHR system like MEDITECH Expanse represents one of the most complex and resource-intensive projects a hospital will undertake. Traditional classroom training approaches require careful coordination of limited training spaces, instructor availability, and clinical schedules – all while trying to train your staff on critical new workflows. And if you take a DIY approach, developing the content needed to train every role is a major undertaking.Online training transforms this dynamic by providing an unmatched level of flexibility and scalability. When surveying MedPower customers that leverage eLearning as part of their training strategy, 91% report that “online training met all my training needs.” Recent data from KLAS research backs up this claim – showing the percentage of clinicians who would recommend eLearning courses has increased from 67% in 2021 to 83% in 2023.
Annual training and onboarding
With hospital turnover rates averaging more than 20% annually, and the growing use of traveling or locum providers, healthcare organizations have a constant need for training and onboarding. Relying on in-person training requires hospitals to either maintain dedicated trainers or pull experienced staff away from patient care to conduct sessions. Online learning streamlines this process by offering standardized, on-demand training content that new staff can complete on their own schedule – reducing in-person training by 25% to 100%, depending on the training strategy and culture of the organization.Major migrations and version updates (upgrading to MEDITECH Expanse 2.2 or adding a new application)
If your hospital is upgrading to MEDITECH Expanse 2.2, you’ll need a strong training strategy to get the most out of your EHR’s new features and functionality. It can be a serious challenge to provide role-specific training for every EHR user without disrupting patient care. But with eLearning, your staff can complete focused training sessions during downtime in their regular schedules, expediting your roll-out and eliminating the need to coordinate large-scale classroom training events.
Calculating your Return on Investment (ROI)
No matter where you are in your journey of implementing MEDITECH Expanse, leveraging MedPower for online training can generate significant cost savings. The most obvious hard-cost savings are generated by reducing the amount of in-person training required throughout your hospital. Here are factors we take into consideration when developing a customized ROI analysis:
Staff Training Time: Using MedPower online learning, you can significantly reduce the amount of face-to-face training time required for each staff member. For example, if training a new MEDITECH Expanse implementation traditionally requires 12 hours of in-person training, it’s very easy to shift four of those hours to eLearning. Multiply those 4 hours of classroom time across every nurse in your hospital, and you’ll save thousands of dollars by reducing your use of EHR trainers. Furthermore, the classroom no longer needs to be paced to the slowest learner, resulting in a reduction in time to cover the same material.
Physician Training Time: Training physicians on MEDITECH EHR changes often requires a higher touch, one-on-one training approach. Cut four hours of in-person training in half with MedPower, and you could save $10,000 or more in training across 100 physicians.
Content Development: If you build your own MEDITECH Expanse training materials for in-person instruction, it could take up to 500 hours for various departments to create all of the necessary content. Let alone the extra effort to keep it updated. At $50/hr, using the content developed by MedPower instead would save $25,000 or more.
Reduced Turnover: The quality of your onboarding process has a direct impact on staff retention. Recent Gallup studies reveal that only 12% of employees feel they had a great onboarding experience and only 29% feeling prepared and supported for their new role. Meanwhile, the same data suggests that a great onboarding experience can increase retention by 50%. Additionally, KLAS reports that strong eLearning is connected to lower clinician burnout. According to a recent report, the average cost of turnover for a bedside RN is $56,300. Each percent change in RN turnover will save the average hospital an additional $262,500/yr. Imagine paying for your entire eLearning solution simply by reducing turnover by 1%!
These savings multiply quickly across departments. In recent MEDITECH Expanse implementations, many MedPower customers have found that nursing and physician training efficiencies alone covered the cost of their online training investment.
Calculating your Efficiencies on Investment (EOI)
While immediate cost reductions are compelling, the true value of online training extends far beyond these obvious savings. Key efficiency gains can include:
Enhanced Testing Capacity: When teams spend less time developing and delivering training, they can dedicate more hours to integrated testing, leading to smoother go-lives and fewer post-implementation issues.
Improved Schedule Management: Eliminating the need to coordinate classroom space and trainer availability reduces administrative burden and increases flexibility.
Better Training Tracking: Automated competency tracking and reporting helps ensure compliance and identify areas needing additional focus.
Reduced Risk: More consistent training delivery and the ability to quickly update content as needed helps reduce the risk of adverse events.
Continuing Education Benefits: The ability to offer CME credits for online training can boost engagement and offset external education costs.
Get Your Customized ROI Analysis
While the benefits of switching to MedPower online training are universal, the specific financial impact on your organization will vary based on a number of factors. That’s why we’ve developed an ROI calculator that will account for the specific data of your hospital or health system, including:
Staff compensation rates
Facility size and number of users
Current training infrastructure and costs
Implementation timeline and scope
Specific MEDITECH Expanse modules being implemented
Our calculator tool allows healthcare leaders to input their specific variables and see projected savings across different scenarios and timeframes.
If you're considering implementing MEDITECH Expanse, managing ongoing training needs, or planning a major migration, understanding your potential ROI is a crucial first step. Our team can provide a customized analysis based on your organization's specific needs and circumstances.
Contact us today to schedule a consultation and get access to our ROI calculator tool. We'll help you understand not just the potential cost savings, but the full scope of efficiencies and improvements you can achieve with online training.