Six Ways to Provide Successful E-Learning Programs to Healthcare Professionals

Healthcare professionals (HCPs) have an ongoing need to access credible and relevant information around advances in medicine for two major reasons. First, the quality of healthcare outcomes depends largely on their competency, expertise, and knowledge. Second, HCPs need to focus on continuing medical education (CME), not just to bridge the gap between knowledge and practice but also to earn CME credits and maintain their licensure.

In recent years, the healthcare industry has undergone major disruptions due to drastic changes in the way information is disseminated to and consumed by HCPs. While digital advancements have created an oversaturated content environment, the COVID-19 pandemic has introduced the need to both share and access credible information urgently and in multiple, easily digestible formats, so that it can be used to influence clinical outcomes.¹ 80% of the HCPs who participated in a global survey (December 2022 to May 2023) conducted by Wiley and EMI Research Solutions² reported actively seeking out published medical-related information on a weekly basis to build their clinical knowledge.

E-learning: A rapidly growing and powerful resource

Another force that emerged from digital advancements and the pandemic was the evolution and rapid uptake of e-learning along with a stronger focus on HCP engagement. Professor Michael Kirby, Editor, Trends in Urology & Men’s Health, observes, “The whole medical fraternity has gone online. The world market for e-learning is expected to be worth about $350 billion in 2025.” Today, e-learning provides a multifaceted, cost-effective, and time-efficient solution to meet HCPs’ informational and educational needs.^5,6,7 As HCPs heavily depend on pharma for reliable content, introducing well-planned e-learning programs could unlock important benefits for pharma. This includes more inclusive, flexible, user-friendly, and cost-effective solutions that can reach more HCPs. E-learning does not require the costs of in-person seminars or conferences, widens the user-base to HCPs in remote areas or are unable to attend in-person events, and introduces flexibility into how and when content can be consumed.

Prof. Kirby aptly summarizes the key benefits of e-learning for pharma: “The two key things are ease of access and cost. You save money on travel and time. The organizers save money on providing lunches, meals, and accommodation. So, it’s [e-learning is] a very cost-effective way of helping people bridge knowledge gaps … In medicine, we all need accreditation. E-learning offers an easy way for people to get their accreditation. At the end of the day, what we’re trying to achieve is to improve clinical practice.”

Adding to these advantages, Dr. Sucharita Kundu, Senior Content Strategist at Wiley, points out, “Internally, e-learning can extend the value of live conferences and events, particularly for knowledge sharing and collaboration. Additionally, learners can learn from anywhere at any time, so not only is the reach more, we’re also adding flexibility for them.”

E-learning can also improve HCP learning experiences and outcomes by delivering timely, relevant, reliable, expert-led, and evidence-based content at scale to HCPs without compromising the quality of the training. These programs can not only be optimized through a multi-channel strategy but also by regularly tracking their uptake and performance. With adaptive learning technologies, interactive multimedia tools, and content in multiple formats, HCPs can engage with e-learning content more effectively, get a more personalized learning experience, and use it to improve clinical outcomes.

Six success strategies for setting up high-impact e-learning programs

The success of an e-learning strategy depends on several factors. Here are some best practices to follow when setting up high-impact e-learning programs:

1. Understand HCPs’ unique needs: The survey conducted by Wiley revealed that for 50% of HCPs, finding relevant information on their topic of interest is the biggest challenge.² Elaborating Wiley’s approach to help pharma create effective, HCP-focused e-learning programs, Dr. Kundu shares, “We need to understand what HCPs really need to help them in their clinical practice in the real world. So, we begin with a very thorough gap analysis, look at specific challenges and learning objectives, and start to build an e-learning course from there. Once we complete this needs assessment, we look into clear learning objectives and outcomes.” Knowledge of HCPs expectations and content needs is key to delivering relevant content and objectives.

2. Provide reliable and relevant content: While navigating the overcrowded digital information space, HCPs find it difficult to assess content credibility.² Therefore, ensuring that an e-learning program facilitates access to relevant, reliable information is key. Some ways to ensure credibility are: featuring representative voices, setting up independent steering committees, editorial panels, and CME accreditation, recruiting experts to answer HCPs’ questions, setting up multidisciplinary panels, inviting patients on steering committees to share lived experiences, conducting a thorough literature search, and including updated citations.

3. Adopt a multi-channel approach for dissemination: Choosing the right channel to disseminate e-learning programs is equally critical, and third-party platforms or dedicated learning management systems could be very useful here. A multi-channel approach will help maximize visibility and accessibility. In Dr. Kundu’s words, “We’ve seen that online channels through which we promote e-learning courses are a very important factor that drives greater influence and impact.” Speaking about the need to disseminate e-learning content widely, Prof. Kirby adds, “Have an independent delivery channel that providers might find attractive, so you're taking the delivery away from the promoter. So, what we need to do is make this content discoverable, perhaps through social media, apps, Google ads, journals, etc. But I think at the end of the day, you need a multi-channel approach.”

4. Design for maximum accessibility, ease of use, and engagement: The early stages of setting up an e-learning program should include evidence-based decisions on content formats, channels, and platforms. In other words, it is important to consider HCPs’ information consumption patterns and which format is best suited to the specific content, and this includes a focus on short, bite-sized formats that are easy to consume. For example, Dr. Kundu says, “We’ve seen infographics are a hit amongst healthcare professionals. I’ve had 4,000 downloads in a month for one infographic. So we realized that this format really resonates with learners.” Given the flexibility e-learning provides, you can explore multiple formats such as masterclass videos, video shorts, case studies, interviews, podcasts, webinar recordings, bite-sized courses, infographics, virtual reality-based content, etc. It is also important that e-learning programs are accessible to HCPs everywhere and technology can play a significant role here. Another critical factor is the channel. Dr. Kundu elaborates, “One of the things I very quickly learned while designing e-learning courses for the Wiley knowledge hub is that if I just designed a website keeping laptop access in mind, that wasn’t the most effective engagement channel for my learners. We realized through Wiley surveys that about 25% of the medical information is now being accessed through mobile phones (only). So, any asset we create has to have mobile accessibility, a user-friendly learner interface, ease of navigation, and clear instructions.”

5. Try out different engagement strategies: Look beyond the didactic and consider HCPs’ core motivations for learning and self-development. Including participative elements is a great way to engage HCPs beyond the content. Engagement strategies such as different types of and touch points for feedback (e.g., qualitative, form-based, surveys), follow-up communication with HCPs, encouraging comments, gamification and rewards, certificates, opportunities for collaboration, access to experts, etc., are some ways to drive sustained engagement among HCPs enrolled in e-learning programs.

6. Track performance: While it is important to prepare and deliver credible content via e-learning programs, it is equally important to consistently monitor their uptake, performance, and success.^8,9 Since e-learning programs span across formats and channels, it is important to adopt different measures for each. For instance, when analyzing webinar performance, focus on aspects such as registration/enrollment, attendance, interaction during and after the sessions, questions asked, feedback provided, post-webinar downloads, etc. Other measures include program or module completion levels, number and frequency of visits, repetition of specific modules, or number of downloads. Prof. Kirby explains this with an example, “It is good for the people organizing sessions to know how many people are visiting, how much time they spend on this, and how often they come back, because that tells you how effective you are being.” Don’t stop at tracking performance. Analyze the data to build insights into what works best for HCPs. Conduct regular audits to ensure that the content is updated and continues to be relevant. This will create a culture of continuous learning and improvement as well as build a robust corpus of e-learning content that HCPs need and can rely on.

E-learning opens up several avenues to engage information-weary HCPs and enables them to meet their learning goals. Setting up a well-planned, evidence-based e-learning strategy can help deliver an inclusive, flexible, scalable, and personalized learning experience—thus leading to long-term HCP engagement.