CFMC awarded APA approval to sponsor Continuing Education for Psychologists

The Colorado Foundation for Medical Care has been approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. For information on offering APA credit at your next activity, email or call Lorraine Pickrell at lpickrell@cfmc.org or 303-784-5761.

Take your education national with CFMC’s e-learning solutions

CFMC’s Office of Continuing Education supports its customers in taking their education national through the use of CFMC’s new product: online e-learning services. By combining our experience in continuing education content with superb technological resources, CFMC’s Office of Continuing Education now develops and executes high-quality online healthcare educational courses.

In today’s market, online education is a major asset to any healthcare organization’s continuing education program.

• National Audience
• Affordable
• Convenient Learning Resource—Available to Learners 24/7
• Accredited Programs Developed applying Adult Learning Principles
• Electronic Evaluations & Outcomes Measurement Tools
• Immediate Credit Certificate Delivery
• In-house Technical Assistance
• CME Consulting Services
• Live & Online Courses

Visit yourCEsource.org for more information about our continuing education services to award credit to physicians, nurses, psychologists, and others.

Organize to Learn

Within the healthcare industry, there are many roles that our numerous businesses fill: patient care, professional insurance, medical education, to name but a few. Of these, the majority of healthcare organizations seek to improve themselves, not only as individuals within the organization, but the organization as a whole. These organizations will seek out creative ways of incorporating or handling new technology, they will strive to design better systems and smarter workers toward performance improvement, and they will develop methods to lower costs while at the same time increasing efficiency. Given the increasing complexities and uncertainties of the healthcare industry, many successful organizations will best succeed within a culture of learning; the individuals of an organization and its partners and/or target audience members will collaborate, create, and teach each other. With this culture of learning and collaboration in place at the organizational level, the organization itself becomes a “learning organization.”

Strong learning organizations, according to Huw Davies and Sandra Nutley in their essay “Organizations as learning systems,” by several identifying features: “Open systems thinking; Improving individual capabilities; Team learning; Updating mental models; and A cohering vision.”[1] Whereas Davies and Nutley use these terms toward learning organizations in general—more specifically to the views and relationships of people within each—they can be applied to the various business and organization models within the healthcare industry and can help to improve the overall system of learning, efficiency, success, and growth.

Open systems thinking

Typically, an organization is considered an entity comprised of individual departments. Each department has a specific role to play within the organization, and each contributes a specific product or process to the organization but then has nothing further to do with it. In open systems thinking, the view shifts: individuals within each department are taught to view themselves as part of the larger vision, where their output does not stand alone, but rather contributes to overall growth and output. Most importantly, each individual and department views themselves as interconnected to all the others, encompassing more than their immediate role. Putting such a system in place usually requires a new process, but one works within the established norms of the business. The training that goes into this new integration will teach improved and more efficient processes for all involved.

Improving individual capabilities

To achieve overall organization growth and success, and to achieve increased quality and performance improvement, individuals must learn. There is always new information to improve one’s performance, new technologies to help accomplish goals, and new processes to enhance quality output and personal performance. It is not enough for these to be known about or to be made available; rather, it is necessary to incorporate a system in which those can be taught to the individuals, thus improving themselves and the organization as a whole.

Team learning

As discussed, the organization is comprised of departments; each department is comprised of individuals. In shifting mindset to each individual contributing to the organization overall, it is important to remember that healthcare is provided by teams, and not individuals. Team development is essential for achievement, and activities should be planned that enrich all key members of the team, not just one occupation within it.

Updating mental models

Regardless of how long an individual has been with the organization, including brand new from the outside, he is going to hold certain assumptions about how things work. Certain elements will be known as fact and will be acted on accordingly. His view of organizational goals may not be the same as the masses’; his view of potential may be limited by what he conceives as practical and not by what is attainable. Involving him in an educational activity in which he can learn others’ experience and knowledge will serve well to improve both his individual capability and his role within the overall team.

A cohering vision

Every organization has a vision created by the individuals within it. The vision is enacted by those individuals. In a successful learning organization, each individual will strive above all else to ensure that their actions benefit the organization’s overall success and achievement of its goals. It is necessary that this vision be communicated clearly and consistently. Simply stating it in an email or in the company handbook is rarely enough; rather, a comprehensive training program should be brought forward that will successfully teach everyone these goals and the overall process to help all succeed.

In all of the above views, there is an intrinsic interrelationship between the individual, teams, and the organization. Employing a system in which each of these sees their role as a thriving part of the organization as a whole is the key component of a strong and successful learning organization. To further ones accomplishments in such a manner requires more than expressing the intention. It involves looking at what exists, figuring out the steps to move forward, then training and educational programs to achieve this success.

Reference:

1. Davies, Huw, and Sandra Nutley. "Organizations as learning systems." Complexity and Healthcare Organization: A View from the Street. Oxon, UK: Radcliffe Medical Ltd., 2004. 59-68.