Ten Reasons Why Institution-Wide Systems Fail Health Professions Education Programs

When it comes to managing curriculum delivery in health professions education, many institutions rely on systems from their institution-wide IT department for scheduling, assessments, and communication. These systems are often built to support a broad range of academic programs, representing standardized solutions for disciplines that are anything but standard. Health professions programs operate in a complex and dynamic environment, requiring specialized functionality that institution-wide systems are not designed to accommodate. The result is a misalignment that can lead to inefficiencies, increased administrative burden, and missed educational opportunities.

As health professionals explore how to best manage curriculum delivery, here are ten areas to consider where institution-wide system functionality does not align with the delivery of health professions education programs: 

1. Academic Calendar Format

Institutional platforms, such as the Student Information System (SIS), are typically designed for traditional academic calendars (e.g., semesters, quarters, etc.). Health professions programs, however, often need block-based scheduling where learners engage in year-round learning, sometimes spanning multiple overlapping terms. Without this flexibility, health professions programs struggle to align schedules with clinical training and progression needs, creating administrative headaches and student information system synchronization challenges.

2. Combined Classroom and Experiential Scheduling

Related, yet separate from calendar formatting issues, most institutional systems–such as the SIS–are built to manage straightforward course scheduling, focusing on classroom-based instruction. However, health professions programs require intricate scheduling to accommodate clinical rotations across multiple sites–factoring in availability, reporting requirements, and learner progression. Without this capability, institutions risk misalignment of learner experiences, leading to gaps in training and compliance issues.

3. Competency-Based Progression

Another challenge with the SIS, but also impacting institution-wide learning management systems (LMS), is that they are typically designed around time-based learning, where learners advance based on completing courses within a set timeframe. Many health professions programs on the other hand utilize a competency-based education (CBE) approach, where learners progress in the curriculum by demonstrating mastery of skills and knowledge. Without support for CBE, learners would have to follow more rigid timelines, both limiting personalized learning and jeopardizing their preparedness for national or licensure examinations.

Tied to both the institutional SIS and LMS reliance on time-based learning, these systems also track performance at the course level, using GPA or grades as the main indicator of learner success. In contrast to this, some health professions programs also require longitudinal tracking of competencies, skills, and clinical performance for the duration of training. Without the ability to track beyond grade-based measures, health professions programs would lack the comprehensive view of learner development they need to fully assess progress which can make it difficult to identify areas where learners need support or intervention.

Many institutions use specialized third-party assessment packages to capture and report on academic data that may not collect or organize the detailed information required for health professions accreditation. Health professions programs need structured data on competencies, clinical experiences, and assessment outcomes to meet their accreditation standards. Without integrated reporting tools aligned to these accreditation-specific requirements, health professions programs would face time-consuming manual data collection, increasing the risk of errors and non-compliance.

The major institution-wide LMS platforms all support the creation of traditional assessments, such as multiple-choice exams, but lack tools for teaching and learning methodologies often used in health professions programs, such as problem-based learning (PBL) and team-based learning (TBL). Health professions programs rely on these, and other discipline-specific, assessment types to develop critical skills like clinical reasoning and inter-professional or multi-disciplinary collaboration. When these methods are unsupported, instructors must resort to workarounds, reducing the effectiveness of assessments and increasing the burden on faculty.

Another challenge of major LMS platforms is that while they may support classroom-based written testing, health professions programs also rely on out-of-classroom assessment methods for clinical settings, such as with objective structured clinical examinations (OSCEs) and direct observation of procedural skills (DOPs). Without proper support for these methodologies in clinical spaces, faculty would struggle to track and evaluate clinical performance, potentially impacting learner preparedness for real-world practice.

Some institution-wide LMS platforms do not include the capability to deliver proctored exams. Health professions programs typically utilize controlled testing environments to ensure assessment validity and integrity, both of which are critical for upholding the credibility and rigor of a program as part of accreditation compliance. Many national examinations across health professions disciplines (e.g., USMLE for medicine, NCLEX for nursing, NAPLEX for pharmacy, etc.) are also proctored and so the use of proctored physical or digital testing environments helps learners become more familiar with this approach to testing. Without secure exam delivery, health professions programs would risk breaches in testing security, potentially undermining the reliability of assessments, and leave their learners less prepared for future licensure exams. 

Common electronic portfolio (or “ePortfolio” / “e-Portfolio”) platforms used widely at many institutions focus on allowing learners to track experiences and showcase them on self-created websites. While this is one way to demonstrate skills and abilities, health professions programs need a more rigorous way to collect experiential learning coupled with assessment of competency. Without competency-based assessment as part of their portfolio platform, learners and educators lose the ability to demonstrate the validity of their experiences’ alignment to specific competency frameworks, making it harder to demonstrate comprehensive skill development and progression in accordance with common licensure standards.

Most of the institutional systems discussed so far (including the SIS, LMS, or other third-party academic solutions) support neither the placement of learners into clinical settings (i.e., observerships, clerkships, residencies, fellowships, etc.) nor the associated compliance and assessment activity associated with these placements. Health professions programs depend on structured placement coordination to ensure learners meet training requirements in diverse clinical settings. Without this functionality, programs face severe logistical challenges at best and a poor learner experience or even issues with accreditation compliance at worst.

Rather than struggling with the limitations of institutional systems, health professions programs can benefit from platforms that are designed with their particular needs in mind. Elentra, a complete platform for delivering health professions education, is specifically designed to address these unique challenges and includes features such as:

• Curriculum Mapping and Reporting
• Clinical Scheduling and Placement Management
• Competency-Based Education Support
• Learner Progress Tracking
• Assessment and Evaluation Tools
• Learner ePortfolios
  
  

By investing in the right technology, health profession programs can streamline administrative processes, improve efficiency, and enhance learner outcomes. Ultimately, this allows educators to focus on what matters most: preparing the next generation of healthcare professionals.

If you are interested in learning more about Elentra’s support for health professions program scheduling needs, competency-based and clinical education, assessment, accreditation, and more, download our product brochure or reach out to our team for more information!