Lauren Siegfried in ITD
Department Specific Trainings
Department Specific Trainings, such as tours and paths of travel, assist trainers and trainees in navigating a new medical facility.
Project Objectives
The opening of a new medical facility presented the issue of navigation throughout the building and the need for orienting staff to a new space before treating patients. It was determined that navigational aids would be the most effective tool that could be used during the training time frame to provide clear directions that enhanced the understanding of key routes and landmarks throughout the building.​
Departmental tours and path of travel guides were created to familiarize employees with the layout of the hospital, ensuring they could efficiently navigate within their department and to other departments.
teach staff how to navigate through the building, their own department, and between multiple departments in the facility. In-depth departmental tours were developed to orient employees with their own department including navigation through, the location of resources within, and new safety guidelines of the department.
After identifying the need for navigational aids, the development of the content began. The facility was still in the construction phase during this time which meant that access was restricted or very limited, prompting the use of floor plans to create the training aids. Collaboration with each department ensured that all necessary information was accurate and included into the final navigational aids.
Detailed scripts were written to guide users through each department's physical space, highlighting various rooms, medical equipment, and safety tools. Additional step-by-step directions were included in the Path of Travel guides for reference by the users to understand exact turns to make without looking at a floor plan allowing them to take in the surroundings of the new facility.
Project Process
Lessons Learned
Creating tour scripts and step-by-step guides for a new hospital using floor plans has provided valuable insights into future work of this nature. First, is another example of the importance of regular communication with all teams involved, ensuring that the information shared is the most accurate in a changing construction environment. Workflow decisions and changes are made daily so keeping that content up to date is what allows for learners to receive the correct information for their jobs.
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Effectively drafting directions around a new facility helped to create a more informative experience, allowing for better navigation and understanding of the facility at the end up training but came with it's own challenges. Through this project I saw the value of peer review in many cases, but writing these scripts in particular opened my eyes to the importance of review with another set of eyes. Writing directions based on floor plans for hundreds of scripts led to minor missteps and typos. Once the building was open to walk through the actual space I was able to test out the scripting for accuracy with a team member to ensure that each script would be training the correct information.
