IMPLEMENTATION OF TRAINING PROGRAM IN THE HEALTHCARE SECTOR
PROPOSAL ABSTRACT
Effective communication and the relationship established at the early stages of patient encounter by providing proper information, taking preliminary physiological checks and further communication to the doctor regarding the patient situation are critical steps in the life cycle of the patient at healthcare organization.
Thus the proposal aims to enhance the communication skills along with establishing proper preliminary check-up protocols in the nursing staff such that the customer experience could be enhanced and the quality of care delivered through the organization could be maintained and enhanced.
The training shall also aim at not only lectures but an overall skill enhancement based module such that best results could be achieved for the all – round development of the employee and the organization.
IMPLEMENTATION OF TRAINING PROGRAM IN THE HEALTHCARE SECTOR
INTRODUCTION
Healthcare industry is rapidly changing and ever expanding. So it is of utmost importance to keep abreast with the latest technology and techniques available to maintain and provide the best healthcare solutions for the patients. Training and workshops are crucial for improving the quality in healthcare. This proposal aims to suggest a solution to the problem of ineffective communication and inaccurate and delayed first aid to the patients due to lack of understanding between the first point of contact staff and the patients. The nursing staff fails to understand the most appropriate need of the patient which causes delay and sometimes improper initial actions taken for care. This effects the time taken for care and sometimes even the steps taken for the critical care.
Thus having a well planned and executed training schedule can help to enhance the skills required for the critical care of the patients and increasing the effective communication such that more efficient actions could be taken within stipulated time to achieve the best treatment and care support to the patients.
ANALYSIS OF TRAINING NEED
SECTION-1: DEFINE AND DISCUSS THE CENTRAL ISSUE
To identify the key areas where training needs to be given, Training Needs Analysis (TNA) shall be undertaken. The TNA helps to reveal the key areas where the staff needs suitable training for the enhancement of their skills such that the routine work could be speed up with more accuracy (Rajan, 2015).
Increasing number of cases complain of the time consumed in the initial formalities which causes delay in the administration of the required care to the patients. Thus it was identified that the effective communication skills could speed up the process. Also if the staff is trained properly to measure and assess the basic physiological parameters like BP, Heart-rate, temperature the time consumed while proving care could be minimized. The gravity of issue is observed severely in the nursing staff which fails to communicate well with the patients efficiently correlate the symptoms with the action to be taken. The issue of inefficient communication is observed recently in the organization due to the changes made in the recruitment procedure where consideration and preference is also given to the fresher candidate having no prior experience of work in the healthcare scenario. Thus these candidates fail to understand the proper need of the patient in absence of any senior staff to guide them during the process. Thus it would be of great importance to organize a training program to develop their skills.
SECTION-2: EXPLAIN EFFECTS AND IMPACT OF THE ISSUE
Communication serves as an important factor in the overall experience of the patient and its attendants during their visit and stay at the healthcare organization. Several studies in the last ten years show that patient satisfaction and the experience of care can be enhanced by the ability to explain, listen and empathize that have significant effect on the biological and functional health outcomes (Duffy, Gordon, Whelan, Cole-Kelly & Frankel, 2004).
In absence of effective communication, the customer or the patient fails to establish the trust which helps in acceleration of the recovery and treatment process (“Delivering Team Training to Medical Home Staff to Impact Perceptions of Collaboration”, 2015).
Also in case the staff is skillfully trained to communicate well with the patient and also the doctors to provide the brief clinical background of the patient history the treatment process could be accelerated in terms of time and accuracy. Trained staff would be able to communicate well with the patient and doctor in more confident manner thereby increasing the trust in the process.
Effective communication with proper reporting of the physiological health examination of the patient with correct clinical correlation as per the condition or symptoms of the patients could promote the process of treatment.
One of the example shows that proper communication and verbal skills was responsible for the changes observed in the lifestyle of the diabetes patient which helped to speed up the treatment through self-management (Heisler, Bouknight, Hayward, Smith & Kerr, 2002).
SECTION-3: LINK THE ISSUE TO ORGANIZATIONAL GOALS
The major goal of the healthcare organization is to provide proper care and treatment to the patients and establish a trust such that it is recommended and more patient footfalls can be assured through the word of the mouth based publicity.
A well trained and well spoken staff always attracts more attention and the words ensure to the attendants that their patient is in the safe hands.
The overall experience of the patient could be enhanced by proper communication which can ensure not only the revisit of the patient and the family member in case of subsequent such emergencies but also further communication to their peer group.
The customer friendly approach as always followed by the organization would also be taken further by proper communication and information of the patient regarding its accurate condition, motivation of the patient, discussion of any good or bad symptoms observed during treatment with the concerned doctor to achieve better results. Team Work spirit as always a major goal of the organization could also be enhanced because with proper communication a trust could be established which helps to accelerate the treatment process with enhanced results (Rodríguez Perera & Peiró, 2012).
SECTION-4: RESEARCH SUPPORT
Up-gradation of Performance of the employees: Poor employee performance in a healthcare organisation accounts for inaccessible and inappropriate care which eventually results in poor health related outcomes and mistreatment of the customers due to harmful healthcare practices. Hence, systemic approach is required to upgrade the performance of the professionals and this could be done by conducting systematic training for effective use of the equipment, drugs as well as supplies.
Patient care outcomes: Another important researched opinion related to training to develop an environment where health care professionals are able to provide their best services to the customers. Hence, in order to achieve this aim, the caregivers must reach their point of unconscious competence where they would be able to provide right treatment to the patients as it becomes a nature to them incorporate the same in their lifestyles.
Teamwork: Long lasting education is a crucial feature of all the therapeutic professionals at all the levels. Healthcare professional can be subjected to training such that the training cultivates their educational learning with respect to staff individuals. Healthcare workers could be motivated to incorporate their educational learning with training day by day and week after week schedules such that they ceaselessly enhance themselves and the healthcare services that they provide (Lewis, 2017).
Employee engagement: All health care organisations must have an environment to create a culture that demands employee engagement. Sometimes, even the most dedicated and highly rated employees can reduce the performance and productivity of an organisation if they are not properly engaged by their project leaders or if they are not sufficiently empowered to involve into decision making process. Hence, routine training must be conducted by the project leaders in order to keep the employees engaged in their tasks and adapt to the work environment and to ensure that they are value in order to drive innovation.
SECTION 5 METHODS USED TO IDENTIFY THE TRAINING NEEEDS
There is always a requirement of the any health-care organization to identify the needs of training of its staff at an individual, group or team level. This can be processed by effectively informing about the educational as well as training related packages to all the individual staff members, analyzing their educational outcomes and eventually customizing their training processes as per local requirements.
The basic questionnaire based assessment: This questionnaire has been designed to evaluate the training need of an individual alone. It comprises of 7 point scale in 2 different parameters. Rating A is designated rating for evaluating the responsibility of the respondent towards understanding the importance of his/her task in his/her job profile and Rating B is designated for the level of performance of the individual in his work. Rating A signifies the index of how important a particular task is for the respondent and Rating B signifies the index of how well the job is being performed. Training need assessment is analyzed on the basis of the performance Vs importance score card. If the respondent gets a high A rating and a low B rating, it implies that there is a high requirement of training and if there is a low A rating and high B rating, it implies that particular task could be considered for training with a low priority.
Surveys: Sometimes, surveys can also be conducted with the use of the sample pool or with the help of all the employees working within the organization. Conducting surveys help in determining the deficiencies in the performance of a particular staff in any specific area. A particular questionnaire can be prepared and circulated among all the employees of the organisation. The questions to be added in the survey sheets should be focused on any specific task carried out by the staff or the requirement of the organisation as well as the employees. When employees respond to the survey questions anonymously, it helps in increasing the creditability of survey and would result in genuine responses. The pros of this activity would be to reach out to maximum number of employees in the organisation with less time duration and this is very inexpensive as well (Gaspard & Yang, 2016).
SECTION-6: PRESENT A SOLUTION
In healthcare organisations, achieving objectives to meet health-care requirements in a particular population depends to a huge degree on the arrangement of successful, productive, available, and practical and a supreme quality service from the healthcare organisation and its professionals.
Motivation: Motivation is the foremost requirement of any organisation as it leads to a specific behavior in the professionals working in an organisation. For any task to be performed intensity towards work persistence of the efforts and right direction and dedication are absolute requirements and these characteristics come from motivation. All the employees within an organisation must take pride and feel good about their jobs being done and they should be constantly rewarded by the organisation to keep them motivated. The organisation should also encourage its employees for higher learning by providing them high responsibilities and always keeping them informed about their training requirements. Hence, motivation plays an intrinsic and compelling role in addressing many challenges witnessed by the healthcare organisations (Lambrou, Kontodimopoulos & Niakas, 2010).
Job Satisfaction: A sound workplace should be made where the employees must feel safe and happy to put their efforts in. Hence, Job satisfaction is a crucial requirement for the progress of the company and for a motivated work field. This is usually encourage by maintaining a clear working environment such as timely and proper disposal of waste, conducting periodic health checkups for the employees, identifying certain safeguards against practices that are unsafe. Also, an organisation should keep taking regular feedbacks from their employees via formal assessment tools or surveys. This would help in employee realization about the active human resource management system (Cooke & Bartram, 2015).
SECTION 7: IDENTIFY THE TARGET AUDIENCE/STAFF GROUP FOR TRAINING PURPOSE
Training is always a well-coming event in the organization. It not only helps the one who are new to the organization but also help to polish the skills of the existing members.
Thus the suggested training program is aimed to be most suitable for all the recruitments held during the last 6 months for nurses, mid-wives, paramedical, doctors, front desk, sample collection and billing counter and all other members which deal directly with the patient or their relative at any point of time during the entire patient cycle in the organization.
The training shall be open to all the members of the organization, however organization needs to ensure that the above mentioned member attend the training session on a mandatory basis.
The staff shall be grouped as per the type of encounter they have with the patients for example the member of the front desk and billing shall be trained together, while the staff such as nurses, mid-wives, phlebotomists, doctor interns shall be trained together so that they also co-ordinate better (Phillips, Hodges & Phillips, 2004).
SECTION 8: SUMMARY OF COST ANALYSIS AND LOGISTICS
The company selected for training of our manpower is XYZ Trainers.com. It is a renowned name in the training sector for healthcare professionals.
They claim to increase the efficiency of up-to 60% which they have even achieved in several organizations listed on their website.
The training shall be for 15 days + project work and would take place in two batches. The venue for the training is ABC Hospital, XYZ street, New Zealand. The registration for the training will start from 20th August, 2017.
The total training fee: $500 USD per participant which would further include the course material and supplements, lunch as well as refreshment. Travel cost should be bore by the participants.
The cost provided could be minimized in case we are able to provide pick-up and drop facility to the trainers.
Though since the training shall commence within official hours and in the seminar room of the institution thus cost of venue could be reduced considerably.
The management has compared the prices with several other organizations offering similar package and found them to be best after final negotiations.
The organization could recover the cost of training within 3-4 months provided we are able to increase our footfall by even 15% of assured range.
The training would employ the hands on use of all the molecular biology and hospital based equipment and in the in-house resources include the toolkit for all the presentations, CDs of the seminars, assessment worksheets, and all the necessary stationary items. Despite of this, the labs are fully equipped with all the necessary trainers to provide the effective training required.
CONCLUSION
The proposed training shall be an excellent support for the motivation of the staff and enabling them to increase their efficiency and working abilities.
Specially the fresher staff shall be encouraged to work better and understand the overall working of the organization and shall be able to develop the qualities of team work and co-ordination. The level of satisfaction would be raised among the patients which would increase the trust for the organization in the market and help to increase the overall customers.
The training would help the existing staff to understand and identify the qualities of the new recruited staff such that allocation of duties could be made keeping in mind the abilities of the upcoming staff.
REFERENCES
Cooke, F., & Bartram, T. (2015). Guest Editors’ Introduction: Human Resource Management in Health Care and Elderly Care: Current Challenges and Toward a Research Agenda. Human Resource Management, 54(5), 711-735. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/hrm.21742
Delivering Team Training to Medical Home Staff to Impact Perceptions of Collaboration. (2015). Professional Case Management, 20(2), 89-90. http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/ncm.0000000000000089
Rajan, D. (2015). Training Need Analysis: A Comparative Study among Managers. Training & Development Journal, 6(1), 1. http://dx.doi.org/10.5958/2231-069x.2015.00001.3
Duffy, F., Gordon, G., Whelan, G., Cole-Kelly, K., & Frankel, R. (2004). Assessing Competence in Communication and Interpersonal Skills: The Kalamazoo II Report. Academic Medicine, 79(6), 495-507. http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/00001888-200406000-00002
Gaspard, J., & Yang, C. (2016). Training needs assessment of health care professionals in a developing country: the example of Saint Lucia. BMC Medical Education, 16(1). http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12909-016-0638-9
Heisler, M., Bouknight, R., Hayward, R., Smith, D., & Kerr, E. (2002). The relative importance of physician communication, participatory decision making, and patient understanding in diabetes self-management. Journal Of General Internal Medicine, 17(4), 243-252. http://dx.doi.org/10.1046/j.1525-1497.2002.10905.x
Lambrou, P., Kontodimopoulos, N., & Niakas, D. (2010). Motivation and job satisfaction among medical and nursing staff in a Cyprus public general hospital. Human Resources For Health, 8(1). http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1478-4491-8-26
Lewis, J. (2017). Objectives for Training Medical Employees. Smallbusiness.chron.com. Retrieved 17 August 2017, from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/objectives-training-medical-employees-15429.html
Rodríguez Perera, F., & Peiró, M. (2012). Strategic Planning in Healthcare Organizations. Revista Española De Cardiología (English Edition), 65(8), 749-754. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rec.2012.04.004
Phillips, J., Hodges, T., & Phillips, P. (2004). Making training evaluation work. Alexandria, VA: ASTD Press.