Building and Sustaining a Free Online Continuing Education Program for Healthcare Providers

Participants are provided information on building a sustainable free online continuing education program using examples from the success of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) Texas Health Steps (THSteps) Online Provider Education (OPE) program. THSteps is Texas Medicaid's Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis, and Treatment (EPSDT) comprehensive preventive child health service. THSteps is dedicated to: expanding patient and family awareness of services through outreach and informing efforts; and recruiting and retaining a qualified health-care provider pool. The goal of the free THSteps OPE program is to improve health outcomes and care quality throughout the state by providing high quality educational materials tools and resources for the state’s healthcare providers.

Learning Objective 1 provides background information on how the THSteps OPE program was built through collaboration with internal and external stakeholders and provides a model for implementation in other organizations.

Learning Objective 2 includes information on the various interactive features that are used in producing content for the OPE program and how new features are selected and integrated into the content.

Learning Objective 3 provides detailed information on specific projects including modules, videos, print and other collateral pieces produced for statewide dissemination. Select pieces will be provided to session participants in attendance.

Learning Objective 4 details how course evaluation feedback is captured, analyzed and integrated into the ongoing development and explains the challenges of capturing evaluation information and maintaining response rates.

Learning Objective 5 details the methods used to evaluate course performance and utilization plus provides detailed information on sustainability efforts.