If your organization needs to improve the public’s health and well-being in your community, then you already know community health workers (CHWs) are a good solution. That’s the directive of many of the Medicare health plans and clinics that work with CHWTraining.

The problem comes to deciding how to train a brand new CHW workforce or other support workers. Many individuals want to promote health and build community capacity to ensure health equity, but they might not have the skills. That can be an issue especially if you need them to be trained quickly.

You need efficiency in your training process so you’re not reinventing the wheel every time with every community health worker training. A ready-to-go learning process is important because traditional classroom training takes time and extra funding.

What is an Online Learning Subscription?

A learning subscription lets you begin training within a few days. It’s a digital learning solution that provides 24/7 access to a complete catalog of interactive training courses and videos for anyone on your team who needs to build skills or meet training requirements. Learning subscriptions are helpful for existing and new hires because they make it easy to stay current as health recommendations are constantly changed and revised. Access to a continuous learning system like CHWTraining keeps staff connected to enhanced training or CHW certification requirements with each new update.

Ultimately, the quicker your organization can hire and train CHWs, the faster they can do the tasks they’re are so good at: providing high-impact prevention, early intervention for at-risk individuals, navigation support, and linkage to care. Uncoordinated training efforts can put your health outreach projects at stake.

Take a look at these 7 benefits of a learning subscription for CHWs.

1. 24/7 access, all year long

Most learning subscriptions, including CHWTraining, provide year-round access, 24 hours per day. This means that your staff can access training when it’s convenient for them: between site visits or client calls or on weekends. It also means that you can train new people whenever you hire them any time within a 12-month period—or longer with a multi-year subscription.

2. Reduce administration

Many CHW programs are grant-funded, and they require careful documentation of who took which course and if they received a certificate of completion and when. This kind of administration is much easier if the training program is outsourced. Spending for grant requirements is clearly documented, and the need for expense reimbursements is greatly reduced.

3. Fulfill competency requirements

Many states follow CHW core competency requirements, such as those from the Community Health Worker Core Consensus Project (C3), and your team members might be required to meet them for employment. A CHW learning subscription tracks the common requirements nationally so you don’t have to.

4. Dedicated technical support

Most of the organizations we work with realize their training needs but lack the staff to do it. Many programs run on a slim team—sometimes of just one or two people. If they’re in charge of their regular job duties, the last thing they have the time or skills to do is support participants who need technical support. Having a technical support team—that speaks English, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin and other languages—can let in-house administrators focus on their day-to-day duties.

5. Keep knowledge fresh

Health recommendations change constantly, as do health and social service systems, grant objectives and population health concerns. CHW teams need to be informed of these changes when they happen. A training subscription means they have access to updates throughout the year—whenever they happen. You can make sure your team remembers what they learned by requiring them to refresh their training every year.

6. No need to reinvent the wheel

Many training programs, such as sexual harassment or assessment skills, don’t vary much from year to year or from class to class. Moving training online means getting away from repeating the same training year after year and to each employee group. This has tremendous cost savings.

7. Simplify reporting

Reports that are generated on the fly can help create a personal experience and give administrators an easy view of how staff are doing. Tracking progress is as easy as clicking a button, which lets you quickly identify a learner’s status and gain insight into their training journey.

These are just some of the many ways that a CHW learning subscription can greatly improve the quality of your workforce and training efforts.

Curious about how you can bring more efficiency into your community health worker training program? Contact CHWTraining to talk about your needs today.