CrossKnowledge Learning Suite vs. HealthStream Learning & Performance

CrossKowledge offers a superb library of learning content and a serviceable learning management system to go with it. If you’re looking for robust reporting or want to minimise the time you spend managing learning administration, you should look elsewhere.

HealthStream is a wonderful tool for assigning assessments and evaluating knowledge. The assessments have a large pool of questions to pull from. The exams are timed and will generate a test report at the end of the exam so the clinical team can see what tests were passed and failed. These are helpful in ensuring we know what the nurse needs extra education on. HealthStream would be less suited for education items that would need to be validated in person...skills such as CPR.

• CrossKnowledge provides learning content across a wide array of subjects, and this content is delivered using various delivery methods (interactive e-learning, videos, reading material, activity journals, etc.)
• CrossKnowledge’s learning suite makes it easy to set up and roll out a highly customised learning management system.
• CrossKnowledge offers a mobile app that makes it easy to access both the learning management system as well as their learning content on the go.

• Reporting. Having the ability to track compliance (and non-compliance) at our fingertips ensures that we are up-to-date with Federal, State, Local and internal policies, requirements and educational initiatives
• Customization. Developing in-house materials, specific to our variable training needs is a huge plus - HealthStream's commitment to SCORM-ready content since 2011 has made it simple for us to connect, engage and interact with all of our staff and providers.
• Integration. Allowing us to interface with our HRM/HRIS systems is invaluable. Keeping up with a dynamic workforce, both in terms of retention and attrition, would not be possible without our current interface structures.

• As a learning management system, CrossKnowledge’s backend is missing several key features for learning administrators
• It is immensely difficult to set up learning events and managing invitations to learners
• Reporting is extremely limited: you can only see the reports that CrossKnowledge seems necessary; you have very limited customisation options, and many of the basic reporting functions are simply impossible

• Embedding elearning tutorials into HealthStream can be a bit complicated, and even slow down the site for the end user. In my experience, I found it much easier to just offer a link to the tutorial through the assessment portion.
• Keeping users synced into the most up-to-date user groups can be a bit tricky. If you create your own student groups, and then these students transfer to a different job role or department, you will manually have to make these changes yourself. A more automated process would be great.

CrossKnowledge’s learning content makes it a no-brainer. Besides, while their LMS isn’t as powerful or robust as we’d have liked, it’s still serviceable and most of our learners aren’t directly affected by it.

We just can't imagine NOT having HealthStream as it has become such a part of our training system. The per user cost has actually gone down from 3 years ago. However, we are using more courses we have purchased. This allows us to be more efficient with our time and more convenient for the end users. We are considering purchasing other aspects of the system.

I only used HealthStream for a short time, but it wasn’t overly user-friendly or pretty. There were some quirks that I didn’t like, like the quiz builder or uploading lists. Whenever you assigned a group it was difficult to tell and confirm that the assignment went out. Overall I like other systems better.

Moodle is a far more powerful and flexible learning management system for learning administrators. Where CrossKnowledge has the edge is in its fabulous learning content library.

The interface for HealthStream is 1000x better than My Learning. I still struggle to find my assignments and upcoming in person training on My Learning. It is not intuitive and doesn't have a dashboard when you sign on to see everything at once. HealthStream lets me easily see my assignments, their due dates, and any upcoming dates

• It’s extremely difficult to evaluate ROI of a tool like CrossKnowledge, but it’s only been a little over a year since we rolled it out across the organisation and we’ve already made it part of our performance management system

• More efficiency. Easy way to implement training to a larger group of people.
• Helps to orientate new hires to our organization quicker.
• Consistency with training messages. We can communicate a method that can be easily adopted and implement across the organization.