Healthcare Learning Platforms: How Better Content Can Build Better Clinicians

Your healthcare learning platform is more than just a teaching tool. A good one will help your staff keep up to date on the latest, greatest tools and technology in the field. A great one will help your hospital or health system stay on top of changing regulations, maintain compliance, and help streamline your onboarding and training process. 

Regardless of the metric you’re after, content is the foundational puzzle piece of any learning tool. Of course, that means when evaluating a healthcare learning platform for its ROI, it’s essential to ask not just,  

“How much can this platform automate?”  

Instead, you should ask, “Can we trust your expertise?” 

Therefore, content quality is a business issue, not just a rung on the ladder of learning and development. 

How better content improves a healthcare learning platform’s ROI 

Evidence supports a simple principle: Education has more value when it changes practice. 

Joint Commission requires hospitals to demonstrate ongoing staff competency as part of accreditation — meaning competency-based education is directly tied to hospital compliance and quality standing. Similarly, CMS’ Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting Program ties reimbursement to measurable improvements in care, reinforcing that clinical competency directly affects both patient outcomes and revenue. 

On the education front, AHRQ emphasizes competency-based patient safety education and notes that training format can affect comprehension and retention. Its guidance points to simulation for high-risk, infrequent events and workplace-relevant learning approaches.  

More recently, a 2025 systematic scoping review in BMC Medical Education found that multicomponent continuing professional development with practical skills development, ongoing reinforcement, and organizational support was more effective than standalone educational activities. Fourteen of the 17 included studies reported positive patient outcomes.  

For buyers calculating the ROI of a healthcare learning platform, the implication is important: Course completion alone is a weak endpoint. Better measures are whether people are prepared, competent, confident, compliant, and able to apply learning when it matters. 

What does trusted content look like in measurable outcomes? 

The link between good content and good patient (and business) outcomes is well-established. 

• Ali et al. (2025): Multi-component continuing professional development led to positive patient outcomes, including reduced hypoglycemic events, and shorter ICU stays, were reported in 14 of 17 studies. 

• Roderman et al. (2024): Educational content, among other interventions, was critical to reducing falls in one hospital from 4.05 to 2.54 per 1,000 patient-days (P = .0001) and saving an estimated $1.6 million. 

• Garcia et al. (2024): After dedicated training and education, sepsis bundle compliance increased from 25% to 62%, and the observed/expected mortality ratio declined from 1.14 to 0.73. 

• Aryee et al. (2024): A review of 44 studies involving 40,223 healthcare providers demonstrated that asynchronous, synchronous, blended and self-directed e-learning improved knowledge, skills, clinical performance and professional competence. 

Those are just a few of the handful of studies and meta-analyses that point to the link between content and care. 

Can healthcare organizations trust Relias’ expertise? 

Relias doesn’t aggregate third-party training. We maintain an in-house content organization of adult learning and healthcare education experts who work with healthcare professionals to assess, update, and create content. Dozens of subject matter experts review content for accuracy, while internal contributors collectively bring more than 1,000 years of healthcare experience. 

That expertise operates at scale:  

• We offer 4,000+ continuing education courses, 8,000+ unique content assets, and more than 7,000 hours of education.  

• For ease of use, we’ve also created 550 U.S. crosswalks and 583 international crosswalks.  

External recognition includes being named #1 Top Product Across All Products by G2 and receiving Gold in Digital Health Media/Publications + Video by the Digital Health Awards. 

And, as one health system assistant director put it, “It’s easy to trust Relias. They’re always on top of keeping the content up to date.” 

How can organizations prove Relias‘ ROI? 

When it comes to our products specifically, it’s easy to point to the value: 

• One Cleveland-area hospital saw $94,000 in annual savings with streamlined learning through Relias. 

• St. Luke’s Health System showed an 18% improvement in clinical knowledge. (And, as the research has established, better clinical knowledge generally leads to better patient outcomes.) 

• Texas Children’s Hospital saw a 35% reduction in massive transfusion protocols in the first year. 

Meanwhile, onboarding and retention are other pieces of the savings puzzle. Our data shows how even a 1%-2% improvement in nurse retention can significantly change a hospital’s bottom line. Meanwhile, Mercy Health St. Mary’s saw 100% retention of nurses at the one-year mark for six of seven new nurse cohorts, and Memorial Hermann reduced post-hire orientation time by 6.5 days. 

Depending on your hospital size, you could see net annual savings of: 

• Small hospitals: $7,000-$18,000 

• Mid-sized hospitals: $84,000-$203,000 

• Large hospitals: $31,000-$220,000, with ROI multiples exceeding 7× in many large-hospital scenarios 

Better content is part of a healthcare learning platform’s ROI 

When a healthcare organization asks, “Can we trust your expertise?” the answer should be visible in the content development process, the experts behind it, the evidence supporting the learning design, and the outcomes customers can measure. 

While an LMS can distribute training, a healthcare learning platform should help turn accurate, current, clinically relevant education into better-prepared people.