Professional Development and Training

Team members experience the hospital’s culture firsthand during new hire onboarding, the Pursuit of Excellence Pathway (PEP). Designed with our culture of excellence and the unique needs of new team members in mind, this pathway will put a PEP in your step and guide you through your onboarding experience.

The PEP offers professional development and ongoing support throughout your entire first-year journey:

• Champions for Children Orientation: Initial orientation to Arkansas Children’s focused on the organization’s culture.
• PEP Squad: Other new team members who started their journey on The Pursuit of Excellence Pathway at the same time as you.
• PEP Rally: A gathering following your first 90-days with your PEP Squad for additional professional development, connection, and support.
• PEP Talks: Scheduled one-on-one conversations between you and your supervisor.
• Peer Coach: An experienced peer within your department who will provide on-the-job support and guidance.
• Arkansas Children’s U: A comprehensive learning management system providing access to resources for additional training.
• PEP Opportunities: Additional professional development structured around AC’s core values: Safety, Teamwork, Compassion, and Excellence.

Our new nurses also participate in Professional Nursing Orientation (PNO), which is a two-day interactive orientation program followed by area-specific EPIC training.

Our New Leader Onboarding experience accelerates your integration, socialization, and contributions to the organization’s mission, vision and values.

This experience has four anchoring components:

• A peer coach will be assigned within the first 30 days of your hire/promotion date. The peer coach will help you interpret and navigate our culture and provide support and guidance when needed.
• You will receive two resource guides: the First Call Resource Guide and the New Hire Checklist. The First Call Resource Guide helps you track down the right person, so you can find the right information. The New Hire Checklist is a basic “to do” list when onboarding new hires to your team.
• You will have access to Arkansas Children’s University - a “One Stop Shop” for access to courses and content relevant to new leaders. There are courses offered through online delivery, classroom settings, and one-on-one meetings.
• Leadership development sessions are focused on the functional and the intangibles of both managing and leading. New leaders will attend six or eight of these sessions with peers who are also new to their leadership roles. To end each session, a panel of leaders who recently finished their first year will answer your questions and provide any relevant insights.

Tuition Assistance

Arkansas Children's provides assistance to employees for completing educational degrees and professional certifications.

Leadership Development

Arkansas Children’s promotes leadership development through DDI and Arkansas Children’s-developed training modules. These modules focus on competency development in seven key areas: Leading, Standards and Accountability, Planning and Decision Making, Communication, Developing People, Managing Relationships, and External Awareness, and Performance Management.

Online Education

Pediatric Learning Solutions is an online educational tool, which provides information, courses, and continuing education opportunities for Arkansas Children's employees. All courses are developed in collaboration with industry and subject matter experts from children’s hospitals and the Children’s Hospital Association. Content is updated regularly to ensure the best available evidence is guiding clinician practice. The PLS system is used to standardize information that is key to delivering seamless, safe, quality care for pediatric patients. In addition to using courses developed by the PLS instructional design team, Arkansas Children's staff use Articulate Storyline software and the ACU Course Request Tool to design and develop hospital-specific modules that are housed in the Arkansas Children’s University (ACU) learning management system. Today, Arkansas Children's has a robust online course catalog with over 1200 computer-based training courses available for staff development.

Arkansas Children's offers a nursing residency program to new graduate registered nurses. This residency program will greatly benefit its participants, the hospital and the patients, especially in the hospital's ongoing commitment toward quality and safety grounded in evidence-based practice.

Arkansas Children's is a member of the Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare. We are the only Schwartz Center Healthcare Member in Arkansas with over 430 additional members in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Visit the Schwartz Center website for additional information.