Background/Case Studies: Our lab performs high-throughput donor testing for a wide array of customers. We must track training and competency for over 25 employees in 16 different processes. Due to the complexity of the training and competency process there is a lack of visibility to trained and competent personnel, pending and overdue competencies, and approved competency assessors. This lack of visibility increases the risk of performing testing out of compliance. To help better manage the training and competency process we developed and implemented a competency assessment tracker and training dashboard Smartsheets.
Study
Design/Methods: We developed a training process management Smartsheet that enables Lab management to request training and allows training coordinators to launch training curriculum to staff. The Smartsheet automatically sends weekly requests to the trainer for feedback on the trainee and training progress. Once the initial competency assessment is complete, the Smartsheet will move the completed row to the competency tracking Smartsheet which will alert staff when required competencies are due. The competency tracking Smartsheet also tracks ongoing competencies and sends alerts to staff of competencies due a month in advance. Weekly reports are automatically generated for the training coordinator to verify the status of training tasks and competency assessments. A training dashboard was created to pull information from the two Smartsheets and generate a status summary of staff training. The dashboard displays key information such as a competency matrix, status of in process training and pending training, and status of all competencies. Data related to training and competency assessment was analyzed from pre-(May 2021 - April 2022) and post-Smartsheet implementation (May 2022 - April 2023).
Results/Findings: Development and implementation of Smartsheets for training and competency management reduced the maximum number of days to close competency assessment tasks by 23%. Use of these Smartsheets also reduced the percentage of overdue competencies from 20% to 12%. The competency assessment tracker helped to maintain the task closure rate of 24 days even though there was an increase of 26% in training tasks performed. The overall time invested in managing and tracking training was reduced from 8 hours to 2 hours per week following implementation of the Smartsheets. Conclusions: Development and implementation of competency assessment tracker and training dashboard Smartsheets allowed us to close training competencies quicker and decrease the percentage of overdue competencies by 8%. The use of these Smartsheets increased (26%) the number of training tasks performed, allowed us to maintain a task closure rate of 24 days and decreased the time invested in management/tracking of training by 75%.
Importance of research: Maintaining up to date competency assessments is very important for compliance to regulatory requirements. Devising user friendly ways to provide better visibility while streamlining the process are tools that any laboratory can implement to enhance compliance. This abstract shows such a user friendly tool that could be implemented easily by any laboratory.
