Silverchair Learning Systems

Christian Care Centers

Client
Christian Care Centers, Inc. (CCC) has provided elder care services in Northern Texas for more than 60 years. They currently serve about 1200 residents with 600 employees.

Though they hadn’t previously considered using technology to implement employee training, they were progressive with their use of technology in other areas of their business.

Challenges
In reviewing their education process, CCC discovered that only 45% of their staff actually attended face-to-face inservices, 18% attended inservices via video, and 47% of their staff did not receive inservice training at all.

CCC used a traditional training process with a paper-based tracking system requiring the use of binders. Administrative nurses spent fifteen hours per week preparing, presenting, and cleaning up after sessions. Five hours was spent per month to post attendance to the binders. Inservices were presented four to five times in order to deliver the education to everyone, and many were cancelled due to the inability of the nurse to hold the session. Paper-based records lead to long reviews and surveys—on average, it would take a surveyor up three to four hours to conduct their review at a facility.

CCC’s Spanish-speaking staff attended inservices, but didn’t understand the content presented in English. This misunderstanding lead to a citation when an employee could not answer a surveyor’s question about fire safety.

CCC was also experiencing continuing employee turnover, and the costs related to filling in for missing employees and recruiting, hiring, and training new employees.

Results
Improved Inservices and Record-Keeping

CCC now offers more training to employees with better compliance rates. In 2005, about 71 inservices were provided to facility-wide and nursing staff, with employees taking an average of 9 courses each.

The following table demonstrates Silverchair’s impact on the amount of education provided to CCC’s staff at the Health Care Center, their skilled nursing facility. Inservice compliance at the Health Care Center has reached 100% for 2007 and 2008 for all departments.

Kim Cook, CCC’s AVP-Clinical Services, also observed “a noticeable improvement in staff response to questions by surveyors was noted within the first 90 days.”

Silverchair’s courses in English and Spanish with the ability to change back and forth between the two at any time during a course allowed Spanish-speaking employees to fully understand and use the knowledge they were given during the sessions.

Phil Elmore, President and CEO of CCC, said, “[Since we use Silverchair] we should not get a deficiencyforeducation again.” He and Kim both agree that Silverchair has become a significant part of the culture of their organization, and that Silverchair is part of the reason they have had two years of deficiency-free surveys and one year with no nursing deficiencies in the last three years.

Bringing their training records into Silverchair’s LMS has reduced time and effort during survey, with compliance now being monitored on an ongoing basis with real-time reports. Surveys now take less than one hour.

Reduced Employee Turnover
In the last three years, CCC has seen a steady 3-4% decrease in their turnover each year. In addition to other initiatives, Silverchair has been an integral part of the reason for this decline. According to Phil, “We invest in our greatest resource – our people.” The organization is implementing a career ladder as part of that investment with completion of certain Silverchair courses as a pre-requisite.

By reducing turnover by 3-4%, CCC saves almost $95,000-127,000 per year in employee turnover costs: According to a study done by the Vinfen Corporation in 2004, senior care organizations accrue around $5,276 per employee in turnover costs.

Phil noted, “You lose 70% of your people in the first 90 days, and 70% of those in the first 30.” CCC will use Silverchair’s Survey Tool to conduct new employee surveys at 30-, 60-, and 90-day intervals to determine where to improve retention.

Previously, CCC’s nurses had to pay for CE classes. With Silverchair, they now receive the CEs necessary to maintain their license at no extra cost. In Texas, nurses need a minimum of 20 hours of CEs for a 2 year license renewal, with classes ranging from $10-40 per hour. Health Care Center’s 41 nurses save, on average, $500 each in self-paid training costs.

This has proven to be a selling point as an employee benefit among critically-needed nursing staff. According to Kim, “The nurses love the CEs. They feel like they got a raise.”

Improved Training Costs
According to Phil, using Silverchair was a budget-neutral decision and a “no-brainer,” given the increase in education that currently goes out to CCC staff.

The table below looks at the impact Silverchair has had on the cost of delivering training at Christian Care Centers. In looking at the costs over their entire organization for 2008, their average cost per course was under $1.00.

Conclusion
Christian Care Centers made the decision to raise staff knowledge while maintaining budget neutrality. They increased their compliance exponentially and gained instantaneous on-demand report availability, excellent survey outcomes, and increased retention rates.

According to Kim, “Things happen now as they are supposed to happen. Staff knows when they will do courses. They are better prepared to do their jobs with increased comfort. Our administrative nurses can now focus on their primary responsibilities – providing quality care to our residents.”