E-Learning Package Helps York Teaching Hospital Meet CPA Standards for Point of Care Testing

As Point of Care (POC) diagnostic testing increases in healthcare facilities, the training of users to ensure that they are competent in using POCT equipment is becoming an ever growing challenge. This has been recognised in the Clinical Pathology Accreditation (CPA) standards for POC testing, which calls for POC testing facilities to demonstrate adequate training and recertification of operators. York Hospital has adopted the cobas® academy e-learning tool from Roche to help meet these requirements. York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has 85 Accu-Chek® Inform II blood glucose meters and six cobas® b221 blood gas analysers installed across the Trust. These instruments are linked to the cobas IT 1000 POC data management solution, allowing them to be monitored and
managed centrally. With around 1700 operators for glucose testing alone, POC Coordinator, Anne Penrice sees the advantages of using cobas academy e-learning to help deliver a high standard of training to POC users. “We have a huge number of staff that we need to train and retrain,” she commented. “This is an enormous task if it is all done face to face. It’s very difficult for staff to come off the wards. cobas academy e-learning provides a way to engage staff in training without them needing to leave the wards. They can access it whenever it is quieter and they have time to fit it in, so it is much more convenient for them.”

“We originally started using cobas academy e-learning for the glucose meters in December 2010,” she continued. “The package is used by anyone who has received initial training, ranging from matrons to health care assistants, in order to maintain competency. We still need to have some face to face training, but the majority of users are now able to be re-certified through cobas academy -learning. We are now rolling out the cobas academy e-learning for re-certification of blood gas analyser operators. The Royal College of Nursing allows users to achieve Continuing Professional Development (CPD) points for the cobas academy training. In addition, the package helps us to achieve CPA standards for POC testing, which requires adequate training of staff and proof of competency. This Roche system provides a full audit trail for training and a record of the re-certification status of staff.” cobas academy e-learning offers a full online training programme, which includes video training clips and further information about testing. The system provides the Point of Care Coordinator with a comprehensive overview of each operator’s competence profile. This enables trainers to identify strengths and target areas for further development. In 2010, cobas IT 1000 with cobas academy e-learning was awarded the Nursing Times Productive Working Silver Award.