I remember reaching out to a Local Health Department Human Resource Director that had just started their new position. Shortly into me describing the TRAIN Training Plan feature they just began profusely thanking me for reaching out on that day before I could finish what I was going to share with her about the Training Plan.
I have had many conversations with Local Health Department Human Resources personnel since that day. I have found there is one very appreciative individual in each Local Health Department that depends on the TRAIN Training Plan feature.
How it works
Let us look at where this feature enthusiasm began. Local Health Departments identified training that they deemed important and mandated that all employees complete on an annual basis.
Here is a look at two plans currently being used by Local Health Departments.
Why all the excitement around Training Plans?
Going back to the conversation with the new Human Resource Director I began this writing with, the phone call went something like this.
The very day I called this Director they had taken a position where the previous Director had left suddenly. They had spread out on their desk all of these printed off Excel Spreadsheets that the previous Director had used to keep track of the training the employees had completed. To compound the confusion, at that Health Department, employees had to complete their courses on their Employment Anniversary Date.
Different Health Departments handle the mandated course completion timetable differently. Some set an end of the year Completion Date, such as all employees need to complete their Annual Training by December 31st. Notices go out to the employees on the first of December. Other Health Departments set Completion Dates based on their budget cycle, such as, courses are to be completed by July 31st and these Health Departments send out notices to the employee on January 1.
I do have to slip in funny conversation I had with a Human Resources Director.
It went something like this, “David, there must be a simpler way to handle these annual training records. My office is wall to wall file cabinets and if I must collect eight more certificates from each of my employees, I will have to purchase another file cabinet that I have no room for.”
Training Plans are very simple to build and very simple to monitor and require no metal file cabinets. We have many Local Health Departments spread across our 120 counties that make up our Commonwealth. I learned early on to encourage Training Plan builders to begin their Plan Title with an acronym of their Health Department. We also do this naming scheme with our State Department Programs that use TRAIN Training Plans for their curriculum. We do the same with Course Build Titles.
Monitoring TRAIN Training Plans
Monitoring plans is a little quirky especially for employees that take the same course year after year. We do not build a new TRAIN course each year for each of the identified mandated courses. [Note: We do give Kentucky courses a refreshed look on a regular cycle] How does this impact monitoring? If an employee has taken a mandated course in the past, that course will be listed as completed in their plan.
Therefore, this is how we instruct our Human Resource people to monitor current year TRAIN Training Plans.
In the Training Plan Tile, there is a Master Training Plan Report. When you click on that Tile, at the time of this writing, it takes you back to Classic TRAIN. You need to select your Active Plan from the drop-down and insert Start and End dates and click Create Report.
The resulting report displays a lot of data that you can page through. The navigation buttons at the top. The play button scrolls through the pages of the report. There is a floppy disc Icon at the top that allows for downloading Excel versions and other formats including PDF.
This process has worked out very well for monitoring plan completions. No more certificates being dropped off to the HR person, no more file cabinet purchases.
The Health Departments in our Commonwealth that have chosen to obtain PHAB accreditation [Kentucky Health Departments with PHAB Accreditation], use the download from the Training Plan Report to upload into ePHAB. I can put you in touch with Directors that do that process.
One Last Story
Not too long ago I received a call from a Health Department Director. They called just to thank me for introducing their Human Resource Department to the TRAIN Training Plan and they have several years of history using the Training Plan Feature. They had created a plan to help the Department keep track of Nursing CE and another plan to track Environmentalist Registered Sanitarians Hours.
Their Nurses found themselves in an audit with the Kentucky Board of Nursing. The nurses were able to pull up their TRAIN Transcripts and TRAIN Certificates and the Human Resource Director was able to provide the TRAIN Training Report to the Kentucky Board of Nursing. The Health Department Director stated to me that having these reports saved his Health Department a little over $800 in fines.
There are at least two employees in a Local Health Department that appreciates TRAIN Training Plan feature, the Human Resource Director and sometimes, even the Health Department Director.
David
(OF NOTE: The PDF version is what Green River District is uploading to ePHAB. Rebecca Baird, HR, is willing to work with any health department that wants to use the feature.)
David Knapp 