According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, “healthcare occupations and industries are expected to have the fastest employment growth” of any U.S. industry in the next few years. That may foreshadow a surge in demand for learning programs that prepare people to enter the healthcare field or advance within it. Talent development professionals working in the industry may have a few busy years ahead of them.

Luckily, learning already plays a prominent role in healthcare. Highlighted by ATD Case by Case, a series of brief case studies from the ATD Human Capital Community of Practice, current applications of learning in healthcare range from preparing hospitals to treat new diseases to developing the customer service capabilities of insurance providers.

Here are six case studies that highlight talent development’s accomplishments in healthcare:

1. Cigna: Building Doctors’ Leadership Behaviors

Cigna, an organization that works with employers around the world to help them implement health benefits plans, requires its doctors to guide the business—something they don’t learn to do in medical school. To help its physicians transition into leadership roles, the company developed a blended learning program that combines formal learning events, peer learning and mentorship, and stretch assignments.

2. WakeMed: Training’s Role in Ebola Outbreak Preparation

During the 2014 Ebola scare, the leaders of WakeMed—the only hospital system in Wake County, North Carolina—developed a training program to help employees protect themselves and their patients in case of a local outbreak. Although one (fortunately) never occurred, the program offers a strong example of emergency response training involving such techniques as simulations.

1. Florida Blue: Improving Business With Onboarding

As its business grew, this health insurance provider needed to reduce time to competency for its new call center agents. Florida Blue responded by launching a new onboarding program with performance checkpoints and just-in-time coaching that allowed employees to test their skills while eliminating unnecessary risk.

1. Cardinal Health: Building the Foundation for a Company-Wide Mentorship Program

When faced with an array of disorganized informal mentoring programs that were not delivering ideal results, leaders at this healthcare organization decided to make a change. They consolidated Cardinal Health’s mentoring programs, updated the processes supporting them, and developed conversation-starting materials to help stimulate the relationships between mentors and mentees.

1. Signature HealthCARE: Using Data to Develop Leaders

When this provider of long-term nursing care updated its leadership development programs in 2013, it relied on data to guide the decisions. Ultimately, the new approach led Signature HealthCARE to update one training program for senior executives and launch another for new leaders while updating its data collection and evaluation processes for all programs.

1. [Novo Nordisk: Creating a Library for Individual Learning Journeys

](http://casebycase.td.org/learning-technologies/creating-a-library-for-individual-learning-journeys/)

When its leadership competencies grew outdated, this North American affiliate of a global pharmaceutical company responded by updating and reorganizing them. To support this update, talent development collaborated with Novo Nordisk’s IT department to build a new learning management system that allowed employees to access learning content on an as-needed basis.