Running Head: INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN IN THE MEDICAL FIELD

Instructional Design in the Medical Field

Ellen Anne Yanik
EAC 580 Designing Instructional Systems in Training and Development
North Carolina State University

Running Head: INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN IN THE MEDICAL FIELD

Interviewee
Lindsey Simmons is an instructional program designer at Biogen. Located in Research
Triangle Park, Biogen is an international biotechnology company. Lindsey works as the
instructional designer (ID) for patient services. Patient services is essentially a call center that
helps patients with various medical needs. Some of these needs include; answering questions
about drugs that the patient is taking, serving as a middleman between patients and doctors,
helping patients enroll in financial assistant programs, and scheduling at home nurse visits.
Lindsey is in charge of designing programs to train agents on new drugs, new systems, and new
hire agent training.

Lindsey studied marketing in college and began her job at Biogen as a front line agent.
She was in this position for a couple of years before moving to a training position. At the time
there were only two trainers (no IDs) and they created all of their training materials themselves.
While this job was fun and she really enjoyed the behind the scenes work of creating the
trainings after two years Lindsey was burned out. This led her to push for and then apply for the
ID job that Biogen created as the company grew. Lindsey got the job and has been the sole ID for
patient services since 2008.

While most IDs are required to have a masters degree in ID, Lindseys training has been
mostly on the job. She has taken online classes in e-learning, and through ASTD (American
Society for Training and Development). Currently she is working on a Masters of Education in
Digital Learning and Teaching through NC State University.

Running Head: INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN IN THE MEDICAL FIELD

Interview Process
Finding an ID to interview was anticipated to be a challenge, however Lindsey is a fellow
graduate school classmate and shares a similar course load this semester. The interview was set
up via email contact and was conducted via Google Hangout. The interview lasted just at an hour
and an audio recording was collected (with interviewees permission) to supplement notes that
were frantically typed during the conversation. Follow up emails were exchanged to clarify
interviewer questions.
Instructional Design Primary Issues
In todays challenging economic times, ID as a profession appears to be holding its own
(Van Rooij, 2010), however what is taught about ID and the ID process differs slightly from the
real life job. During the interview several conversations originated in ID theories and then
morphed into a discussion about practical applications of ID theory on the job. Topics in this
conversation included; SAM vs. ADDIE models, program pilots vs. rapid prototyping, and
evaluation of ID programs and practice.
ID theory is all interconnected so it is difficult to parse out different aspects. For example,
when comparing the ADDIE and SAM models of ID, evaluation will be pulled into the mix.
According to Leaving ADDIE for SAM, the SAM model attempts a combination of both
formative and summative evaluation within the review cycles, reversing the ADDIE notion that
summative evaluations follow formative (Allen, 2012). This echoes Lindseys comments about
which ID model she uses and why. Lindseys job requires her to design programs very quickly
and thus she does not have time to follow strict guidelines in the analyze, design and develop
phases of the ADDIE model. Rather her design process more closely aligns with the SAM

Running Head: INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN IN THE MEDICAL FIELD

model. She utilizes a very iterative design process and is always gathering information on what
the learners need to know, creating, changing, and regrouping.
Formal design models tend to lend themselves to either linear or iterative processes.
Lindsey clearly follows a more iterative design process. This is due in part to the short time
constraints of her job but also her personal preferences on the design process. Users of rapid
prototyping are often drawn to its ability to quickly accommodate iterative input from test
subjects using work-in-progress versus near-finished products during the design process, not
after it (Desrosier, 2011). Lindsey begins with meeting with subject matter experts (SMEs) on
the program that she is designing. This is one of the biggest challenges that she says her job
presents. Since she does not have a medical degree herself, she depends on the SMEs for all the
specific drug or system content that she writes into the training program. Often the SMEs have a
hard time separating what information is essential for the learner to know and this creates
challenges for Lindsey. Once she meets with the SMEs, Lindsey goes through the process of
rapid prototyping to create the final training program that will eventually go live.
During the iterative process of designing a training program Lindsey is constantly
evaluating different aspects of her working design. In her opinion, the analysis is the most
important phase of the evaluation process. She pays particular attention to two types of analysis;
audience analysis and task analysis. Collected at the beginning of the design process Lindsey
uses audience analysis to obtain information about the needs of her audience. She stressed the
importance of knowing the levels of knowledge of all audience members. For example,
understanding knowledge levels plays a large role when creating the new hire training program.
The ages of the new hires and their proficiency with technology will determine factors that she
can build into the training program. Task analysis is a complex part of Lindsay's job. It [task

Running Head: INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN IN THE MEDICAL FIELD

analysis] is the key to identifying performance problems and developing improved performance
support systems and training (Ruyle, 1999). Due to time constraints, it is important for her to
capture all the pieces needed prior to beginning the actual building of the training program.
Adding order to the number of tasks that she needs to complete helps keep her organized and
manage the project better.
Interview Takeaways
The conclusion of this interview left several topics for further consideration. The first is
the importance of audience, second is the necessity for project management skills in the ID field,
and third is the growing need for knowledge about technology and its applications within ID.
Lindsey spoke at length about each of these topics and encouraged anyone entering the field of
ID to pay particularly close attention to these three topics.
An essential component of facilitating learning is understanding learners (Oblinger,
2003). Lindsey called the learners that she designs training programs for her audience and
emphasised understanding this audience is a crucial part of effective ID. Lindseys audience
spans the gamut of ages and backgrounds. There is no single formula, particularly since students
often span broad ranges of ages, learning styles, and communication preferences (Oblinger,
2003). Designing a program for new hire training is very different that designing a training
program for veteran agents. Also the amount of technology that she can incorporate into the
training program changes based on the audience. While adult learners find computers to be an
increasingly important component of their educational endeavors (Simms, 2008) too much
technology or flashy technology can actually hurt a training. One of the biggest mistakes that
Lindsey recalled was when she tried to use a flip classroom approach to train agents on a new
system. Even though the training was designed for veteran agents, the method of delivery was

Running Head: INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN IN THE MEDICAL FIELD

new and when agents were asked to apply what they had learned they were unable to recall the
learned skills and perform the intended tasks. Keeping the abilities and prior experiences of the
intended audience is key when designing instructional programs.
One of the surprises that Lindsey found when she became an ID was the amount of
project management her job demanded. One of her recommendations for future IDs was not to
underestimate the power of good project management skills. Project management skills include;
the ability to lead a project team, estimate project requirements, and develop processes and
standards for completion of instructional design projects (Van Rooij, 2010). Lindseys area of ID
is very regulated by the government and thus the training programs what she designs have to
undergo an approval process by members of legal regulatory medical associations which take
several weeks. This forces Lindsey to plan backwards once she receives a training request.
Lindsey juggles multiple projects at a time and her project management skills help her coordinate
with SMEs and know when content has to be loaded into a learning management system (LMS).
Having good project managements skills keep you organized and on time with project
deliverables commented Lindsey.
Another take away the saturated the interview was the theme of technology and its used
in ID. There are many new technologies which can be used for by IDs, learning management
systems, blogs, wikis, webcasts, and podcasts are best suited to aid in training programs (Myers,
2008). Lindseys masters program has taught her about many new technology tools that she can
implement in her training programs. While the majority of the training programs that Lindsey
creates are along the lines of blended learning (some classroom, some online) she does try to use
new engaging technology tools (poll everywhere, kahoot, digital bingo, etc) as activities within

Running Head: INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN IN THE MEDICAL FIELD

the classroom portion of trainings. As the conversation of technology in ID drew to a close,
Lindsey emphasises the importance of IDs staying on top of new and current technology.
Conclusion
The goal of instructional design is to make learning more efficient, more effective, and
less difficult (Morrison, 2013). This is something that Lindsey strives to do each day. While her
job is a challenge she clearly enjoys being an ID. Although not formally trained in ID theory, she
uses a lot of the current literature and adapts strict ID theories to fit her own design needs.
Project management and advances in technology comprise a surprisingly large part of her job but
she rises to the challenge and is always looking for new ideas to try. Lindsey's final advice to
novice IDs was to learn from other IDs around you. Ask an ID if they would let you shadow
them for a day and if they would look over things that you have designed and give feedback. It is
clear from this interview that being an ID is a rewarding and always changing career.

References

Running Head: INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN IN THE MEDICAL FIELD

Allen, M., & Sites, R. (2012). Leaving ADDIE for SAM: An agile model for developing the best
learning experiences. American Society for Training and Development.
Desrosier, J. (2011). Rapid prototyping reconsidered. The Journal of Continuing Higher
Education, 59(3), 135. doi:10.1080/07377363.2011.614881
Morrison, G. R., Ross, S. M., Kemp, J. E., & Kalman, H. (2013). Designing effective instruction.
John Wiley & Sons.
Myers, P. M., Watson, B., & Watson, M. (2008). Effective training programs using instructional
systems design and elearning. Process Safety Progress,27(2), 131-138.
Oblinger, D. (2003). Boomers gen-xers millennials. EDUCAUSE review,500(4), 37-47.
Ruyle, K. E. (1999). Analyzing tasks to improve performance. Technical Training, 10(2), 24-28.
Simms, J., & Knowlton, D. S. (2008). Ideas in practice: Instructional design and delivery for
adult learners. Journal of Developmental Education, 32(1), 20-23,26-30. Retrieved from
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url=http://search.proquest.com.prox.lib.ncsu.edu/docview/228524665?accountid=12725
Van Rooij, S. W. (2010). Project management in instructional design: ADDIE is not enough.
British Journal of Educational Technology, 41(5), 852-864.