Not All Online Learning is Created Equal: The Relias Advantage

Background

The Zepf Center is a nonprofit that provides behavioral health and vocational services to youth and adults with severe and persistent mental illness in over 12 locations across the state of Ohio. Services include child and adolescent psychiatric, medical, residential and therapy services, as well as career development. The Zepf Center strives to treat the whole person through psychiatric, care coordination, residential, case management, therapy and career development services. With over 600 employees, they serve more than 5,000 individuals every year.

Challenge

A CARF-accredited organization that has been serving Ohio for over 40 years, the Zepf Center recently merged with another large organization (COMPASS).

“We really like the Relias system, as compared to the old system we used to use. We did a side by side comparison and went with Relias.”
—Cathy Daney, Administrative Coordinator

Not only have they expanded their programs and services, serving a diverse client population across multiple locations, but they have also more than doubled their staff in the past few years. They struggled with communication and keeping everyone at all levels connected and informed, which resulted in the implementation of an online learning management system years ago.

Making sure they had the right system that was meeting their needs was an additional challenge. It’s easy to get comfortable with software, especially after purchase and longtime use, and not evaluate its effectiveness and benefits to staff. Leadership at Zepf Center did just that and found there was a better way.

Solution

One of the many advantages of using the Relias learning management system is how user-friendly it is, not just for the staff completing courses but for the administrators of the system who create training plans, run reports and manage regulatory compliance. “We noticed the ease of use with staff signing themselves up for courses,” said Cathy Daney, Administrative Coordinator. “Staff can easily find courses they need without calling us too much; we still get some calls but not as much.”

While the training and compliance departments manage the system, they work closely with the human resources (HR) department to ensure that onboarding and program-specific training plans are done correctly, in a timely fashion and that corrective training plans are created when needed. They set up the web services connection between their HR information system (HRIS) and Relias, making it faster and easier to keep employee information updated and run accurate reports for managers. They also use the system to track non-training requirements like licensure and certificates (CPR, Crisis, etc.) and manage all their live training.

While the features and functions were important to the Zepf Center, equally important was the quality of the courses and instructional design. They appreciate how interactive and engaging the courses are, with knowledge checks incorporated throughout the courses.

Results

1. Everyone uses the system, from medical providers and clinical staff to administrative staff and housekeeping; they take the health and safety courses to meet
2. Current, updated content: Zepf Center staff don’t have to worry about keeping training up-to-date and current with regulations; content is updated
3. Easy-to-find regulatory and licensing requirements; staff find what they need to keep licenses current, and regulations are built right into the system.