Case Study: AACN Launches New LMS Providing Nurses with Free COVID-19 Training

The COVID-19 global pandemic positioned America’s healthcare workers on the front lines in the fight against the virus. In order to effectively and efficiently care for infected patients, hospitals and organizations race to train nurses, doctors, and other healthcare professionals on critical COVID-19 treatment methods and procedures. It’s crucial for these essential healthcare workers to have up-to-date training resources available to them as they hone their skillsets and prepare as much as possible for the battlefield.

Client Challenge

The American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit association, is the world’s largest specialty nursing organization. Their mission is to provide acute and critical-care nurses with expert knowledge and professional and personal support in their pursuit of the best possible patient care, knowing that patients and their families rely on nurses at the most vulnerable times of their lives. With active membership of over 125,000 critical-care nurses and over 200 US chapters, they are the largest organization of their kind—representing over half a million critical-care nurses.

AACN promotes life-long learning through a variety of professional certification and continuing education (CE) activities, which include their vital and innovative e-Learning & certification preparation courses delivered through the Oracle Learn learning management system (LMS). Hospitals and healthcare providers contract with AACN for customized access to training content via their own unique sub-instance of AACN’s parent LMS. AACN currently supports over 350 of these individual sub-instances, with over 5,500 monthly users.

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, AACN stepped up to the plate and led by example—they made the decision to offer a new evidence-based training course free of charge to all nurses to cross train or refresh their skills, regardless of AACN membership status. This course, which focuses on the serious pulmonary implications of the virus, was developed to quickly empower learners to care for ICU patients with COVID-19. To deliver this free training, AACN needed to roll out a new sub-instance of their LMS as quickly as possible.

eSkillz Solution

AACN previously partnered with eSkillz in 2018 to completely redesign their Oracle Learn LMS user interface and user experience. Their original design, done internally in 2009, desperately needed a refresh, and the design that eSkillz created and implemented streamlined the experience for nurses to access valuable resources and training. The redesigned LMS provided aesthetic enhancements that led to increased user engagement, equipping AACN members for success in their personal and professional development journeys. The redesign went live in early 2019—it was and continues to be a huge win for AACN. Extensive focus group testing returned all positive feedback: “The format is very well thought out and designed.” “A much more intuitive user experience, and a cleaner GUI.” “Much easier to navigate and find what you need.” “Visually appealing, very professional look—just love it!”

The new design was strategically developed to work not only for AACN’s parent LMS, but also for all 350+ of AACN’s unique LMS sub-instances, and to support any new sub-instances that may eventually be deployed by AACN, should the need arise.

Because eSkillz and AACN had the foresight to plan for potential future deployments of the design, AACN was already equipped to stand up a free COVID-19 LMS when the critical moment arrived. Not only was the idea possible, but the LMS design framework had already been put in place to quickly make it a reality and meet the immediate need.

Results

Using the design that eSkillz created, AACN deployed their free COVID-19 Resources LearnCenter on March 25, 2020, just two weeks after the World Health Organization (WHO) officially classified the virus outbreak as a pandemic.

The expertly engineered user interface and user experience design, crafted by eSkillz, ensures that even new users of the system can register, find, and launch vital COVID-19 training quickly and easily. In addition to promoting the new COVID-19 LMS on AACN.org and social channels, the announcement section that eSkillz created for the custom LMS login page design allows AACN to advertise access to the LMS across all of their 350+ sub-instances, maximizing visibility among their membership.

When nurses log in to the COVID-19 Resources LearnCenter, they are greeted by the friendly faces of other nurses and the positive reminder that this is a place to “Learn. Succeed. Achieve Your Goals.” Nurses are the backbone of our healthcare system, constantly in pursuit of the best possible patient care, and eSkillz is proud to have played a small part in supporting AACN’s commitment to them during these challenging times. eSkillz would also like to thank ACCN as well as all nurses, doctors, and healthcare providers across the nation for their dedication and efforts during this pandemic. We will be forever grateful to these heroes!

Experience the eSkillz Difference for Yourself

The eSkillz expert team of designers within our Professional Services division has produced successful designs for over 300 HCM/LMS clients. Our seasoned team designs with your users in mind, creating modern, responsive, and clean user interface design with an engaging experience that excites users and directly impacts the success of your HCM/LMS solution. Our designers work with you to guarantee that your organization’s brand standards are met, and the project vision is cohesive. We offer creative guidance and best practice recommendations throughout the process for both general and system-specific design.

“Oh my goodness, THANK YOU! I said to my boss as I was emailing yesterday how much I love working with eSkillz! I feel like you’re my personal system concierge. I’m learning a TON, and we love our redesigned site.”
—eSkillz Redesign Client

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