Pexip helps Australia drive smoking cessation through video training
Challenges
The New South Wales Ministry of Health, or NSW Health, is responsible for the public health system for Australia’s largest state population wise. They provide and oversee healthcare for up to 8 million people via state-wide health organizations, public hospitals and associated agencies and authorities. NSW Health and Pexip connect 100,000 employees with the vital training they need to better serve their communities.
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic made travel and in-person training much more difficult, NSW Health wanted to find a better way to provide training to their 100,000 healthcare staff spread over 810,000km2 - an area roughly the size of the country, Venezuela
Pexip video communications technology proved to be the solution they were looking for - and just in time.
Solution
James McLennan is NSW Health’s State-Wide Smoking Cessation Training Co-ordinator, based at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney. He manages the education of NSW Health staff on a variety of topics related to smoking cessation.
The biggest benefit of training on the Pexip platform, according to McLennan, is the ability to train so many staff without the troubles that come with coordinating many other kinds of state-wide efforts.
Using the video communications system Pexip and NSW Health developed together, NSW Health has been able to develop and deliver very short training modules approximately 30-60 minutes in length.
For example, the Smoking Cessation training consists of around 14 targeted modules. These provide up-to-date, topical information and education around concentrated, contemporary micro-learning areas. Areas for training include managing cravings, managing stress-related smoking, medication science, water-pipe smoking amongst others.
These short, targeted training sessions that can be delivered across multiple locations and services complementing NSW Health’s other training programs.
All modules are delivered live, so trainers can ensure that participants understand the key messages of the training, and training and are able to provide feedback. Participants have access to their training via an online calendar that is updated monthly. They can login to the platform from wherever they are - home, hospital, or otherwise.
“We started using Pexip nearly 5 years ago as part of a wider NSW Health enterprise arrangement,” says McLennan. “Because we had developed our systems with Pexip pre-COVID, we were able to provide education and training all throughout the COVID period.”
Trainers are able to deliver information on a range of topics quickly and efficiently to a large number of people. Even during the pandemic, when staff had difficulty attending their own workplaces across the state, they were able to attend training from home without any interruptions or stress.
Results
Katherine Richardson has enjoyed her training experience on the platform.
“I can access training in the middle of my workday without having to leave the building,” Richardson says. Logging onto the Pexip video platform rather than going off-site allows clinical staff, from nurses and doctors to pharmacists and psychologists, to devote more time where it’s needed: patient care, not commuting.
“We can conduct sessions at all times of day,” McLennan adds, such as very early in the morning, when staff typically cannot be reached face-to-face at a hospital or training facility, but when they may have more time and mental focus for training.
Richardson also agrees with McLennan about the ease of access that the Pexip video communications platform provides. For both trainers and staff, logging on is a quick 2-step process, with no time-bound registration needed, just the calendar invitation.
They further appreciate the security of the Pexip platform, citing it as one that they are “confident to use” with regards to its high standards for secure communications.
The way that material can be delivered via the Pexip platform is another benefit for those attending training.
Trainers provide their slides as PDF documents for learners to keep, and participants can also automatically generate and download a completion certificate that shows they have attended the course.
For Richardson, the benefits include Pexip’s split-screen functionality. An attendee can separate out the camera views and see the speaker and fellow attendees on one screen, and on a second screen, view the presentation; both screens are full size, rather than either the presenter or presentation minimised at the expense of the other.
“You get the best of both worlds,” Richardson says, calling it more interactive than other video presentation platforms.
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