Through Meaningful Healthcare Compliance Training
Written by Misty Kelly, OHCC, HPOC with contributions from Nancie Lee Cummins, CFE, CHA, CIFHA, OHCC, CHCM, CHCO CORCM, CRAS and Joy Rose, MSA, RHIA, CCS, CHA, CHPS
This article was developed through collaboration with AIHC Education Volunteer Committee compliance professionals who shared practical experiences and lessons learned related to employee engagement and compliance education.
Several years ago, our organization deployed annual compliance training through a learning management system. Completion rates were acceptable; however, employees frequently waited until the deadline to complete their assignments, and retention of key concepts remained difficult to assess. The experience reinforced an important lesson: compliance training should not simply be focused on completion. It should focus on understanding and application.
Training can satisfy a requirement without changing behavior. A completed module or passing quiz may document participation but does not necessarily demonstrate that an employee understands the expectation, recognizes when it applies, or can incorporate it into daily decision making.
Begin With the “Why”
Organizations use a variety of methods to deliver compliance education, including annual LMS (learning management system) assignments, in-person presentations, newsletters, microlearning modules, department meetings, and one-on-one coaching. What resonates with one workforce member may not be as effective with another. Compliance professionals should remain flexible and willing to adjust their approach based on employee needs and organizational culture.
Nancie Cummins noted, “I have found individual training has helped the most. You can go through a format that meets Compliance plan criteria and have individuals interact to answer their specific needs. This way, you can address the compliance requirements while still allowing individuals to engage directly, ask questions, and receive guidance that is specific to their role and needs.”
While individualized training may not always be practical on a large scale, the underlying principle remains important: employees are more engaged when training is relevant to their role and allows opportunities for interaction, questions, and clarification. Even when one-on-one training is not feasible, larger sessions can incorporate opportunities for questions, discussion, and role-specific examples.
One Size Does Not Fit All
The challenge for compliance professionals is determining which methods will resonate most effectively with their workforce. There is no single correct approach. What works well in one organization may not work in another, and a method that was successful last year may be less effective today. Organizational cultures evolve, workforce demographics change, and training needs shift. Compliance professionals must remain attentive to those changes and be willing to adjust the format, timing, and level of interaction.
The concept that compliance programs are not one-size-fits-all also applies to training platforms and methods. My overall goal with this article is to provide practical information to help guide new compliance professionals and offer new perspectives to seasoned professionals.
Compliance education should not be limited to annual training. Whether education is delivered through a formal module, an ad hoc session, targeted remediation, or a Compliance & Ethics Week activity, employees should understand why the information matters. Whenever possible, connect the training to one or more of the following:
- Patient care and safety
- The employee’s individual role
- Organizational integrity
- Operational effectiveness
- Reputation and trust
- Prevention of avoidable compliance problems
- Other organizational-specific priorities
Employees are more likely to retain and apply information when they can see its relevance to their work.
“Employees are frequently completing a checkbox without understanding the ‘why’ behind what they are doing.” – Joy Rose. Joy Rose’s observation reflects a common challenge. Employees are more likely to engage when expectations are connected to their daily responsibilities and the organization’s broader mission. Meaningful engagement requires a clear connection between the requirement, the employee’s role, and the consequence the requirement is intended to prevent.
Choose Methods That Encourage Participation
LMS platforms can be effective tools for delivering and tracking education. However, even the most sophisticated platform will struggle to engage employees if content is repetitive, not role or industry-specific, or lacks practical relevance.
Compliance professionals should avoid designing education solely around their own preferred learning style. A format that feels clear and engaging to the person developing the training may not connect with every employee. Varying the delivery method can improve accessibility and help sustain attention, but variety should have a purpose. The selected method should support the learning objective, the complexity of the topic, and the needs of the intended audience.
In recent years, I have focused on redesigning annual and targeted training to connect employees with organizational policies and reinforce applicable regulatory requirements. This required more than transferring existing content into a new format. We reconsidered how information was presented, where interaction could be added, and how employees could be directed back to the policies and procedures governing their work. Working with our information technology team, we used an AI-enabled platform to develop modules incorporating videos and interactive quizzes. Employee participation improved, and the experience reinforced an important point: strong content is essential, but presentation, relevance, and interaction influence whether employees remain engaged with that content. Technology did not replace the need for compliance oversight. It gave us another way to deliver information in a more engaging format.
For brief reinforcement
- Microlearning and short refreshers
- Short quizzes
- Email, newsletter, or intranet reminders
- Workflow posts explaining the purpose behind a task
For interaction and clarification
- Live or department-specific sessions
- One-on-one coaching when individualized support is needed
- Department visits and informal question and answer sessions
For practical application
- Real-world scenarios
- Role-specific instruction
- Sample documents and guided exercises
- Targeted education following audit or inspection findings
For engagement and visibility
- Videos and visually engaging presentations
- Gamification
- Modest incentives, when appropriate
The method should never overshadow the message. Select the format based on what employees need to understand or do differently after the training.
Use Real-World Scenarios Responsibly
Employees in our organization have responded positively to real-world scenarios. In a post-training survey, 32% of respondents requested additional scenario-based education. Scenarios can help employees translate policy language into practical decisions and understand how a requirement applies in daily work.
Compliance professionals must nevertheless use internal examples carefully. Remove or alter identifying details, avoid information that could permit re-identification, and focus on the scenario purpose or decision rather than the individuals involved. Not every internal matter is appropriate for broad education. When used responsibly, de-identified incidents, near-misses, and recurring questions can become valuable learning opportunities.
Make Creativity Serve the Learning Objective
A well-chosen theme can also help create visibility and momentum around an annual campaign. Our organization has used travel, Olympic, superhero, and scavenger-hunt themes to refresh the employee experience. When feasible, simple décor, intranet content, photographs, and internal announcements can keep the campaign visible.
A theme, however, should support the learning objective rather than compete with it. Creative presentation may attract attention, but the content must remain relevant, accurate, accessible, and connected to employees’ responsibilities.
Leadership Sets the Tone
Training is less likely to influence daily behavior if leadership treats it as an annual assignment or does not reinforce expectations afterward. Leadership involvement should include visible support, sufficient employee time, operational follow-through, and reinforcement within departments. Leadership buy-in is often one of the most significant factors in influencing the success of a compliance program.
In a recent post-training survey conducted within our organization, 36% of respondents identified leadership encouragement as a motivating factor in completing their assigned training.
This year, our organization took a different approach by asking senior leaders to complete the training before it was deployed across the organization. As a result, leaders were able to provide feedback on the learner experience, answer employee questions based on firsthand knowledge, and reinforce the importance of the training from an informed perspective. Employees are more likely to engage when leaders demonstrate that compliance education is a priority rather than simply another assigned task.
Reinforce Learning Throughout the Year
Annual training alone cannot carry the entire compliance education program. There must be reinforcement and other trainings throughout the year. Employees may revert to prior habits when a workflow changes, particularly if the new process is not reinforced or if employees do not understand why the change occurred. Here are suggested reinforcement methods to consider:
- Brief department touchpoints
- Compliance newsletters or compliance content in the company newsletter
- Periodic reminders via email or Teams messaging
- Short quizzes
- Leadership talking points
- Workflow-specific coaching
- New-hire reinforcement
- Targeted education following audit or inspection findings
Measuring What Matters
Completion rates remain necessary for monitoring assigned education, but they answer only one question: Did the employee complete the training? They do not establish whether the employee understood the content, retained it, or applied it correctly. A more meaningful evaluation may include:
- Knowledge checks that require application, not simple recall
- Post-training surveys regarding relevance, clarity, and preferred formats
- Targeted audits or observations of the affected process
- Trends in repeat findings, recurring questions, and reported concerns
- Discussions with department leaders about whether expectations are being followed
Follow-up education when results identify gaps
No single measure will provide a complete answer. Compliance professionals should consider multiple indicators and allow sufficient time for the expected behavior or process change to become observable. When results do not improve, the appropriate response may not be more training. The organization may need to examine the policy, workflow, available resources, competing priorities, or leadership reinforcement.
Meaningful compliance training is not defined by completion certificates, attendance records, or annual deadlines. Those elements document activity, but effectiveness is demonstrated through understanding, application, and behavior.
There is no universal formula for employee engagement. Each organization must consider its workforce, culture, risks, resources, and learning objectives. The most successful approach may combine formal training, practical scenarios, leadership reinforcement, ongoing communication, and opportunities for employees to ask questions and provide feedback.
Our responsibility as compliance professionals is not simply to deliver information. It is to help employees recognize why the information matters and how it applies to the decisions they make every day. When employees understand the purpose behind an expectation and view Compliance as a trusted resource, training becomes more than a requirement. It becomes part of how the organization protects its patients, its workforce, and its integrity.
About the Author
Misty Kelly, OHCC, HPOC, serves as Compliance & Privacy Officer for InnovaCare Health and has more than 23 years of experience in healthcare compliance, privacy, auditing, regulatory affairs, and risk management. She serves as a volunteer on the AIHC Education Committee. This article was written in collaboration with the following AIHC Education Committee Members: Nancie Lee Cummins, CFE, CHA, CIFHA, OHCC, CHCM, CHCO CORCM, CRAS and Joy Rose, MSA, RHIA, CCS, CHA, CHPS
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