Blended Learning in Healthcare: The Teaching Revolution for Safe Care

In an ever-changing healthcare sector, continuing professional development is more than a necessity - it's an imperative to guarantee patient safety and quality of care. Faced with the time, budget and organizational constraints of health and medical-social establishments, traditional training models are showing their limits. This is where blended learning comes in, a hybrid pedagogical approach that combines the flexibility of e-learning with the impact of face-to-face training. Today, this method is emerging as the most appropriate solution for meeting the complex challenges of the healthcare world. At the heart of this revolution is SafeTeam Academy, the world's first video-simulation training platform, which has made blended learning its spearhead for transforming professional practices and reinforcing the safety culture. Discover how this innovative approach can not only optimize your teams' training, but also, and above all, save lives.

What is Blended Learning and why is it so popular?

Blended learning is not simply a juxtaposition of online courses and face-to-face sessions. It's an integrated pedagogical strategy, designed to make the most of each modality. On the one hand, e-learning offers unrivalled flexibility: learners can train at their own pace, wherever they want, on theoretical modules, case studies or immersive simulations. On the other, face-to-face training capitalizes on human interaction, with team debriefings, practical workshops and experience-sharing that anchor learning in real-life situations.

In the healthcare field, this duality is particularly powerful. Professionals must acquire advanced technical knowledge while developing crucial soft skills such as communication, crisis leadership, situational awareness and decision-making. Medical errors, often linked to human and organizational failures, are the third leading cause of death in developed countries. SafeTeam Academy was created with the mission of tackling this problem by providing training tools that target precisely these skills. Blended learning enables participants to prepare the ground with immersive e-learning modules based on real-life cases, then consolidate what they have learned during face-to-face debriefing sessions, where collective intelligence can be fully expressed. This approach guarantees not only better retention of information, but also rapid, practical application of best practices in everyday life.

SafeTeam Academy: The ideal partner for your Blended Learning strategy

SafeTeam Academy is more than just a training provider; it's a strategic partner for healthcare establishments wishing to enroll their teams in a continuous improvement process. Drawing on unique expertise in human factors, pedagogy and healthcare, the academy has developed a method that has already won over 250 establishments and trained more than 11,500 learners since 2021.

SafeTeam Academy's strength lies in its unique format: ultra-immersive video-simulation training. These videos, lasting up to 15 minutes, plunge professionals into the heart of realistic crisis situations, inspired by anonymized real-life stories shared on the Patient Safety Database platform. This realism has been hailed by experts such as Dr Philippe CABARROT of the French National Authority for Health (HAS), who describes the teaching aids as "excellent quality", and Véronique Normier, a simulation trainer, who describes them as "a real revolution in training", with "such realism that you'd think you were there!

These e-learning modules are the first building block in an effective blended learning program. They enable learners to familiarize themselves in advance with safety tools, protocols or non-technical skills, before coming together for a debriefing session led either by the facility's own trainers, or by SafeTeam Academy experts. This flexible, customizable model can be adapted to any need, whether for training an entire operating theater, rolling out a new safety culture, or leveraging existing full-scale simulation sessions. The organization is 100% Qualiopi certified, guaranteeing rigorous methodology and a proven quality approach.

Developing soft skills through simulation

Mastering technical gestures is no longer enough. Safe care relies heavily on non-technical skills: teamwork, effective communication, leadership and decision-making under pressure. These skills are at the heart of SafeTeam Academy's teaching approach. Each video-simulation scenario is designed to question practices and routines, and highlight the power of human factors to prevent, recover from and mitigate errors.

Our training courses target key skills:

• Teamwork and communication: Learn how to communicate effectively to ensure the reliability of care, whether in the operating room, during interdepartmental transmissions or in medical/surgical emergency situations. Training courses such as "Check-list & Teamwork in the OR" are widely acclaimed for their direct impact on team cohesion.
• Leadership in emergencies: Develop a climate of trust to foster communication and rapid decision-making in a crisis, whether it's cardiac arrest, post-partum hemorrhage or a life-threatening emergency on the ward.
• Crisis management and situational awareness: Our scenarios train teams to manage complex situations such as hemorrhage in robotic surgery, a patient who cannot be intubated or oxygenated, or septic shock.
• Safety culture: Dedicated courses help to reinforce the justculture, learn how to provide effective feedback and conduct mortality and morbidity meetings to transform each incident into a collective learning opportunity.

By combining these e-learning simulations with face-to-face debriefings, blended learning enables us to move from individual awareness to the development of collective, concrete action plans, uniting teams around a common objective: patient safety.

Hybrid training courses for all departments and professionals

The SafeTeam Academy approach is aimed at all healthcare professionals (doctors, surgeons, orderlies, nurses, IADEs, IBODEs, etc.) and all types of establishment, whether MCOs, SSRs, EHPADs, public bodies or insurers. The catalog, with over 50 courses, covers a wide range of specialties and issues.

Whether you work in the operating room, emergency department, intensive care unit, delivery room, radiology or medical/surgical department, there's a training course to suit your needs. SafeTeam Academy offers training on topics as varied as :

• Making the HAS surgical checklist more reliable.
• The management of life-threatening emergencies and cardiac arrest, on duty, at the scanner or in pre-hospital care, with the expertise of the Paris Fire Brigade (BSPP).
• Preventing medication errors and ensuring safe transmission.
• Obstetrical emergencies such as post-partum haemorrhage or code red caesarean sections.
• Well-treatment and prevention of elder abuse, with recognized experts.
• Aggression management, identity vigilance and prevention of musculoskeletal disorders.

Each course is customizable and can include several roles (surgeon, anesthetist, nurse...), enabling each team member to experience the simulation from his or her own point of view for maximum awareness. This modularity is the key to successful deployment of blended learning across a facility.

Case studies : Blended Learning in action with SafeTeam Academy

The best way to understand the impact of blended learning is to see how it has been successfully implemented. SafeTeam Academy has helped numerous establishments transform their practices.

Case study: Centre Hospitalier de Sens: Federating the operating room around safetyFaced withthe need to reinforce the safety of perioperative care, Sens Hospital opted for a blended learning CPD course.

• Stage 1 (E-learning): All OR professionals (anesthetists, surgeons, IADEs, IBODEs) took a 1-hour e-learning course on the SafeTeam Academy platform, focusing on teamwork, the HAS checklist and managing task interruptions.
• Stage 2 (Face-to-face): An all-day event was organized for a face-to-face debriefing. Led by experts from SafeTeam Academy, this day provided an opportunity for rich, friendly exchanges. The teams formed working groups and drew up concrete action plans on topics such as checklists and difficult behaviors.
• The result: an "enthusiastic and united" team, concrete improvement plans proposed to management, and valuable data for the Quality department. A perfect illustration of the power of blended learning to transform individual awareness into a collective dynamic.

The Rouen University Hospital: innovating by creating its own video simulationTheRouen University Hospital, experts in robotic surgery, wanted to share its know-how in crisis management. Conventional simulation was not suitable for training large numbers, so they collaborated with SafeTeam Academy.

• Project: Co-create a video-simulation training course on hemorrhage management in robotic surgery.
• Process: The UHC teams, supported by SafeTeam Academy experts, wrote the scenario and were filmed during a simulation.
• The result: an ultra-immersive, reusable digital teaching tool, enabling hundreds of healthcare professionals to be trained and enriching the establishment's training catalog. This partnership model shows how blended learning can also be a tool for enhancing and disseminating in-house expertise.

Center Hospitalier de Mâcon: Potentiating full-scale simulationTheteam of trainers at the Mâcon simulation center wanted to optimize their sessions.

• Objective: To use SafeTeam Academy's e-learning for blended learning and to prepare learners in advance of simulator sessions.
• Deployment: Trainers were given open access to the platform, allowing them to freely create e-learning sessions to introduce concepts such as cognitive aids or human factors.
• Result: More effective face-to-face simulation sessions, as learners arrive with a common knowledge base. Trainers can then concentrate on more advanced scenarios and test the new tools acquired by the teams. The post-e-learning session debriefing becomes a key moment for exchanging ideas and questioning practices.

These examples demonstrate the flexibility and adaptability of SafeTeam Academy's blended learning model, capable of meeting a wide range of objectives: CPD training, content production or optimization of existing systems.

How can I set up hybrid training with SafeTeam Academy?

Launching a blended learning initiative may seem complex, but SafeTeam Academy has designed a simple, supported process to guarantee the success of your project. Our teams are committed to assessing your needs and getting back to you within 48 hours.

The process generally involves three clear steps, as illustrated in our case studies:

1. Needs assessment: During an initial discussion, our training consultants work with you to assess your objectives, target audiences and priority topics. Whether you want to roll out a CPD program, train new recruits, or reinforce your safety culture, we'll work with you to define the most appropriate course.
2. E-learning deployment: Once the course has been defined, deployment on the platform is rapid and requires no installation costs for your establishment. Each learner receives secure access and can follow the video-simulation modules at his or her own pace, over a given period.
3. Organization of face-to-face sessions: The e-learning phase concludes with one or more face-to-face debriefing sessions. These can be run by your own trainers (whom we can support), or by SafeTeam Academy experts, who come to your facility to facilitate discussions and help co-construct action plans.

To meet different needs and budgets, SafeTeam Academy offers flexible packages: from the "Ticket de cinéma" for a single access to a thematic course (ideal for mass actions), to individual or shared "SafeFlix" licenses offering unlimited access to the catalog for one year. The shared license, with its reallocable access, is perfect for gradually training an entire establishment.

The future of healthcare training: human and technological

The health crisis has accelerated the digitalization of training, but it has also reminded us of the crucial importance of human links and teamwork. The future of healthcare training lies not in "all digital" or "all face-to-face", but in an intelligent synergy between the two. This is the promise of blended learning.

As Frédéric MARTIN, founder of SafeTeam Academy and anaesthetist, points out, the aim is to "facilitate exchanges between professionals, in order to improve teamwork in the interests of patient safety". Technology, in this case video-simulation, is not an end in itself. It's a powerful tool for "experiencing emotions, captivating and training large numbers of people", a catalyst that makes face-to-face exchanges deeper and more impactful.

When you invest in a blended learning strategy with SafeTeam Academy, you're not just investing in a training platform. You're investing in your human capital. You give your teams the means to develop the social and non-technical skills that are essential to providing safe, high-quality, humane care. You federate your professionals around a common improvement project, strengthen cohesion and develop a genuine learning organization.

Take action: revolutionize team training

Medical errors are not inevitable. Solutions do exist to enhance patient safety, and they involve innovative, engaging training that is adapted to the realities of the field. Blended learning, as designed and deployed by SafeTeam Academy, represents the most comprehensive and effective approach to meeting this challenge.

Whether you're a facility director, quality and risk management manager, healthcare executive or training manager, it's time to discover how the power of video-simulation combined with the collective intelligence of face-to-face training can transform your teams' practices.

Don't wait any longer to make care safety your priority. Contact our experts for a personalized demonstration of the platform or to assess your needs. Our teams will get back to you within 48 hours.