by Barbara Kram

Most hospitals rely on vendors or in-house staff to provide training for new software systems, but there is another way. CCT Solutions, Ltd. has a different approach to training hospital staff to use clinical software.

The company, founded in 2005 and based in New York and London, trains thousands of clinicians on physician order entry packages, nursing documentation, and other applications.

"We are just training and education [focused] and not responsible for the software that the hospitals have already purchased or the support [of the system] or the configuration," explains Mike McCalman, CCT Program Manager. "We feel the price that we can offer hospitals that may not have their own internal education entities is much less than a hospital might pay a vendor to come on board and train hospital staff affected by that new software deployment."

Some of the HIT software that CCT specializes in includes Cerner and IDX physician order entry and RN documentation; Siemens medication administration checker; Meditech bar code scanning and beside verification software; SoftMed electronic signature authentication; Eagle and ADT admissions, discharge, and transfer applications; and GroupWise email.

The company trains a core group of instructors and gets training information from the vendor and information systems community. Instructors include some lay people along with clinicians such as doctors in residence with gaps in their schedules, researchers or those who want to keep up with automation trends. CCT keeps costs down by recruiting local clinicians and instructors near clients' facilities and shaving operating costs. "We save every penny possible because we're a small company and new company," he notes. "It's all about finding the right people. Once we dedicate a team, whether it's former classroom instructors or unit support, our job gets a lot easier."

The company's client list includes hospitals and big health groups such as Continuum Health Partners, an umbrella for several New York hospitals; Greenwich Hospital in Connecticut, Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia, Valley Health System in New Jersey, Tampa General Hospital, and Seton Medical Center, Austin, TX.

"Outsourced education, to folks who may not be expert on the product, is a fairly new model for a lot of hospitals. But they're willing to take the gamble because of the financial pressures that most institutions have been feeling for the last five to ten years," McCalman says. The company is capable of providing training on a roll-out or facility-wide basis as needed. Ongoing unit support is also provided.

The decision to use CCT's services is made early on in the contractual process when choosing the software. And the company's track record speaks for itself. "We have never been turned away. All the clients have asked us back," McCalman says.