Case Study: University of Utah Health Cornerstone Learning Management System Implementation and Data Migration

Client Challenge

Implement a new LMS with the ability to establish multiple user roles, expand their utilization of materials, allow staff to create and update online courses quickly, and deliver integrated reporting functionality before their current solution’s contract expired.

​U of U Health found that their current LMS hampered their capabilities in many ways. Users struggled to use training materials, and staff could not easily create/update online courses due to the system’s complexity. The existing system offered no integrated reporting features. As with most healthcare organizations, users needed to be associated with multiple departments, job codes, and job titles, depending on their role and the various departments in which they provide patient service. Determining multiple user roles was impossible in the legacy system, which exponentially increased the workload for administrators.

With all of these constraints and limitations, U of U Health found accessing training materials cumbersome. Keeping training courses up-to-date and assigning current curriculum was challenging, which could potentially impact the current status of certification and compliance completions for employees. Reporting functionality was non-existent without an SQL expert to extract and reformat data. Hence, quickly generating compliance reports on demand for governing bodies—like the Joint Commission—to track medical certifications and overall staffing compliance training completions was impossible.

U of U Health selected Cornerstone Learning as its new LMS. This new platform would provide the easy access to training materials they needed. Through the Content Uploader, staff could easily create and update online courses. Cornerstone’s Organizational Unit architecture allowed users to be associated with multiple criteria based on their role, location and departments. Cornerstone’s robust, integrated reporting features and functionality allowed management to use pre-built reports and develop custom reports without the need for experts to extract and tailor the data.

U of U Health’s implementation timeline was extremely tight. The new system and all the legacy data had to be converted, migrated, and implemented in less than 4 months to prevent the negative financial impact of extending their legacy LMS contract.

The next big challenge then became: How can we successfully prepare years of historical user data, training materials, and courses for migration, and then implement and launch our new LMS before our current contract expires?

Preparing over 1 million historical training records for migration and implementing a new LMS before the legacy system’s contract expired—all while maintaining the legacy system—quickly became a staggering feat for U of U Health’s administrative staff and overtaxed their bandwidth.
ANSWER: eSkillz, a trusted partner known for its industry-leading consultative expertise and best practices.

Working closely with U of U Health, eSkillz consultants provided end-to-end care during their LMS implementation by:

• • • Utilizing Agile implementation methodologies to identify and define the specific tasks required to efficiently implement their learning management platform within the short timeframe.
    • Delivering data extraction and transformation services, saving U of U Health valuable time and avoiding unnecessary additional stress placed on their team. eSkillz offloaded the massive task of preparing their data records for upload into Cornerstone Learning. Capitalizing on our years of experience, eSkillz efficiently aligned the delivery of these data services to run in parallel with our implementation methodologies to successfully meet this project’s rigid go-live schedule.
    • Streamlining processes that simplified U of U Health’s training delivery avenues across their multiple hospital departments. After analyzing U of U Health’s legacy processes and various training delivery methods, our consultants offered critical optimization strategies based on their hands-on industry knowledge and expertise.

eSkillz Solution

eSkillz provided the support, expertise, and guidance that U of U Health needed to successfully launch their new LMS in less than 4 months without fiscal impact or contract extensions, meeting their business requirements.

Multiple best practices processes aligned: The eSkillz implementation team was instrumental in the successful launch of U of U Health’s new learning system by working several tasks, across multiple teams, simultaneously. Our consultants had exactly 15 weeks not only to implement the new Cornerstone Learning portal, but to extract, configure, and migrate over 1 million records into the system. Their go-live date was fixed, allowing no flexibility to extend the timeline; their legacy system’s contract was expiring and financial constraints did not afford the extension of the contract.

Our adept, versatile consultants employed eSkillz’s Agile implementation processes to analyze and define the required tasks to achieve success by engaging in Discovery, Prototype, and Organizational Unit Workshops prior to beginning critical Configuration discussions. The eSkillz Project Manager managed multiple departmental best practices by aligning our technical consultants to configure and deliver the technical projects (OU/User data feed, API configuration, SSO, Microsoft Teams integration, and other third party content integrations) in parallel with the execution of our beginning implementation phases.

U of U Health entrusted their eSkillz Implementation Consultant to provide options and guide them in making strong, viable configuration decisions. Our Implementation Consultant led weekly configuration workshops, analyzed legacy processes, streamlined training processes across multiple hospital departments, and provided thorough administrator training and ongoing support for the U of U Health team. U of U Health collaborated with eSkillz on critical governance requirements and relied upon on our industry expertise and direction; the eSkillz Implementation Consultant shared best practices and lessons learned from other healthcare providers and Cornerstone customers to custom-configure the best solution possible.

Due to their limited staff resources and need to continue support of the legacy system during the implementation, U of U Health entrusted eSkillz to extract their master and historical data from the legacy system. Offloading this critical transformation project to eSkillz saved critical time and afforded the project a major advantage by allowing eSkillz Consultants to manage the MDL and HDL timelines and completions. More importantly, this crucial decision allowed U of U Health administrators to balance their focus on the functional and business decisions for their new LMS while maintaining the legacy system for their users.

The eSkillz Technical Consultant applied SQL knowledge and expertise to extract the large volume of data from U of U Health’s legacy system. They proactively collaborated with the eSkillz Implementation Consultant and U of U Health’s team to identify the required content to migrate to the new LMS. The eSkillz Technical Consultant and Implementation Consultant worked closely together to provide U of U Health with best practices for their MDL/HDL load. Their expertise guaranteed a smooth transition and the preservation of multiple years of data records. Their partnership ensured the MDL and HDL projects stayed on track and led to the early completion of the data extraction and preparation task in the project timeline!

Working in parallel to the LMS configuration and data extraction projects, the eSkillz Technical Lead supported the U of U Health technical team in the implementation of their Single Sign-On (SSO). This efficiency paid off, as the SSO implementation was completed before the Organization Unit discussions even began! Additional services eSkillz delivered included configuration, testing, and consulting support for U of U Health’s Cornerstone Web Services efforts, for both user account creation/updates and content.

Our eSkillz Project Manager managed the Agile delivery process of the manifold projects and tasks while overseeing the complex project schedule. Expert efficiency and collaboration ensured all assigned tasks were completed on time by their respective owners. The intense commitment from both teams allowed U of U Health to meet their go live target date in a mere 15 weeks!

Results

Using our proven Agile implementation methodology processes, eSkillz provided U of U Health with the vital data migration and LMS implementation services necessary to achieve their tight go-live timeframe. U of U Health now has a more robust, admin-friendly system that meets their diverse and demanding needs. Now, their admin team can focus on optimization strategies to strengthen their learning deliverables and reporting processes.

This was a big win for U of U Health, as their administrators found the new system to be more admin-friendly. The ability to identify employees within multiple departments and job codes is a major advantage when managing training assignments and reporting needs. Processing on-demand reporting within the Cornerstone platform without requiring SQL expertise to extract and transform the data is a game changer.

The project’s overall success was the result of the experienced U of U Health team and the agility and expertise of the eSkillz team. U of U Health’s admin team was highly prepared and had a deep understanding of their data, processes, and systems, in both current and historical states. U of U Health’s Project Lead relied on the expertise and industry knowledge shared by the eSkillz team throughout the process, allowing them to make quick, comprehensive decisions and align the proper team members and skill sets to keep the project moving forward. Their Project Lead was actively engaged from the very start of the project, ensuring the eSkillz consulting team and U of U Health’s administrators remained connected for all functional and technical discussions.

This collaborative partnership accomplished what seemed insurmountable. With their new LMS built on a strong foundation, U of U Health’s admin staff can now concentrate on optimizing and strengthening their new platform to better meet the demanding governing and business needs that hospital and healthcare organizations face each day.

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