Education Multimedia Producer Helps Bring Learning Home
When a family brings their child home with Pediatric Home Service, they never do it alone – there’s a team of clinicians, nurses, 24/7 on-call staff, and education tools available to help children live successfully at home. These tools, including in-home education materials, online how-to videos and online education courses, are created at PHS to ensure caregivers feel thoroughly trained to provide the cares their child needs, and can reference at any point. Brie Cohen Vlach, Education Multimedia Producer at PHS, has been the person behind the screen ensuring these tools go from concept to home for more than four years.
Building an online education platform
To help create straightforward and accessible education for families and providers, Brie can be found doing anything from building photo libraries of PHS equipment and supplies to designing plain language materials. She also serves as videographer for online education, and produces how-to videos.
Over the past two years, Brie and the education team have created an online learning platform that transforms classes previously only offered in-person into online courses that gives caregivers top-of-the-line education opportunities anywhere, anytime. Currently, caregivers (both family or health care professionals) can enroll in Blood Sampling, IV Basics, and Trach Tube Essentials through PHS Online Education. With these courses, Brie says, participants can become more confident caregivers and will always have resources at their fingertips.
“We designed the courses to be interactive and have them do a lot of practice scenarios, while also featuring real patient videos so they can see cares happening to real children,” said Brie. “With the online courses, they can also revisit the modules at any time – so if a nurse takes a course, they can go back if they need a refresher at any time.”
Top moments on the job
After all the photography, design, and edits, Brie says the most satisfying part of her job is seeing the education materials being used in patient homes and online.
“To see people registering for courses and benefitting from the tools our team created, or to go into a home and see an equipment guide on a family’s refrigerator – that really connects my role as a content creator to the final impact, which is a safer care plan at home for our patients,” says Brie.
These resources improve the quality of care being performed in the home by helping make sure nurses are as well trained as possible with comprehensive and engaging education, and families can learn to care for their child in a way that is digestible and straightforward. And with Tips & How-To’s addressing a specific troubleshooting or care question, caregivers can find immediate answers for questions with a clear and concise tool.
But opportunities to interact with patients and see their progress, like the speaking valve video with Oliver that she produced, are what rank among Brie’s best days.
Busy days ahead
As the weather warms up, Brie is getting ready for her tomato and dahlias gardens and the arrival of a baby boy in June with husband David. But with courses scheduled to be added to the online learning platform in the future, Brie is keeping busy conceptualizing and creating education materials for now.
Keep an eye out for courses being added in the future – we’ll be sure to let you know when new education is available. If you are in need of patient education materials in your home or assistance with online registration, don’t hesitate to ask a clinician or call at 651-642-1825.
Originally published: April 11, 2017