Developing clinical careers through learning and innovation

At Northwell Health, we understand our role in building stronger, healthier communities and the value of the dedicated experts our patients trust in delivering their care. Our biggest assets are our employees and we are committed to our team members’ growth as they contribute to ours.

Northwell’s Center for Learning and Innovation (CLI) serves our growing workforce of 72,000 employees and offers continuous learning and development programs to meet the needs of our changing health system. CLI has worked to contribute to the preparedness of our organization by helping to ensure our clinical and non-clinical team members have the skills they need to be successful.

The Center for Learning and Innovation uses hands-on, interactive approaches to help guide employees through educational classes and best practices, including games, reflective debriefing, interactive technology, and simulations that enhance their profession and the care they deliver. In 2019, CLI had a total of 61,888 learners in attendance, which equated to over 301,445 learner hours. Programs can vary in length from a few hours to a few months and span the personal, professional, and leadership domains.

With so many classes offered to our clinical and non-clinical team members, there’s a lot to highlight. Read below to learn about the programs CLI offers focusing on clinical growth and development. Stay tuned for our future blog highlighting the courses that foster non-clinical development!

The Clinical Skills Center

Providing a safe, structured, and standardized learning environment, The Clinical Skills Center allows healthcare professionals to reach beyond the clinical diagnosis and engage in a more humanistic way to care for patients. We use standardized patients (SPs), who are specially trained team members, for both clinical and non-clinical simulated encounters. The SPs are specifically educated to portray patient scenarios for the instruction and assessment of the clinical skills of medical professionals within our network.

Programs are customizable to meet the needs of our diverse community, and curriculum-specific goals are created to teach our team members while applying the industry’s best practices.

The Patient Safety Institute (PSI)

Outside of real patient simulation, we also incorporate high fidelity simulator training at the Patient Safety Institute (PSI). PSI is the simulation center for Northwell Health, the Hofstra Northwell School of Graduate Nursing and Physician Assistant Studies, and the Zucker School of Medicine. Its mission is to support the workforce by creating a realistic training environment where clinical teams can simulate real-life scenarios so individuals gain increased hands-on experience. This training makes use of advanced clinical mannequins which allow participants to develop an in-depth knowledge of patient care without practicing on human patients.

With the help of innovative technology, the PSI team can facilitate multiple patient care scenarios such as a multi-trauma simulation for a pediatric patient, the complicated birth of a preemie, and the cardiac arrest of an adult patient. The clinical team cares for the patient and then debriefs, discussing what went well and what can be improved so that the patients in our clinical care facilities can receive the best care possible.

Bioskills Center

The Bioskills Center’s purpose is to further medical research and development. As the first health system in the country to be accredited as a Network of Excellence in Robotic Surgery by the SRC, Northwell stands firm in its commitment to advance the healthcare industry and the skills of its employees. This center functions as a fresh, frozen cadaver lab where physicians, residents, medical students, nurses, surgical technologists and others in the medical field can receive surgical training and continue their medical education while working with some of the most innovative, advanced technology around.

By helping sharpen clinical skills and equipping team members with the tools they need to develop as leaders, our organization can guide our employees down a path that transforms their careers. As a result, CLI is not only ensuring growth within our employees, but ensuring each patient that walks into any of our facilities receives the highest quality of care available.

Northwell is committed to investing in the professional growth and development of its employees. Remember to check back next month to learn about our non-clinical programs!