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Introduction
The ever-rising needs by the medical-surgical unit to provide quality and competent medical services and to upgrade their skills and know-how in this sector has ignited a need to develop an education needs assessment. This is a systematic process that is designed to acquire precise and comprehensive scenarios of the strengths and weaknesses in this military hospital with an intention of improving service delivery to the patients. The assessment is also carried out in response to the frequent complains from the members of staff concerning the poor and dilapidated working conditions in the hospital (Save the Children, 2007, p. 13).
Adequately planned learning needs assessment, which plays a crucial role in the provision of quality services to patients and addressing the welfare of the members of the hospital staff. To begin with, the need to learn is an indisputable fact that must be appreciated and guaranteed by all institutions including those in the health sector. Learning not only improves one’s professional competence but also leads to acquisition of vital knowledge and skills that can lead to change in practice. However, this can only be possible if accurate needs assessment is conducted to ascertain the exact loopholes and gaps that need to be reinforced through education. It is against this backdrop that an assessment of the learning needs should be conducted (Lopez & Maoulidi, 2009).
However, the need for assessing education should not be misconstrued to compromise on the quality of data that would be attained. This exercise requires careful planning and exhaustive research. It should rely on both informal and formal needs of the hospital and not one at the expense of the other. It should also be creative and professional in nature, especially in this case of a hospital set-up. Moreover, it requires the participation of all the stakeholders in all the sectors (Rouda & Kusy, 1995, p. 67).
Background
The government made it mandatory for all institutions to conduct an organizational and individual needs assessment in the year 1998 with an aim of enhancing the personal and professional developments for all professionals in the healthcare system. The educational needs assessment therefore plays an important role in the governance of the provision of professional health care service to the citizens. It is also important to note that the needs assessment idea first emanated in 1989 when it was incorporated with quality assurance of the service and education in a clinical audit aimed at addressing the organizational and educational needs (Grant, 2001).
Apart from the health care system, needs assessments in other sectors was an important component of management, which was normally outsourced. It was intended to provide learners with the necessary motivational skills required of their profession. To this extension, in a health care set up, the work experiences together with the dynamic needs identified during his or her stay within the healthcare facility were the motivating factors for learning. Therefore the needs assessment draws its base from a rich foundation. In compliance to this background, a needs assessment was conducted in the medical-surgical unit in a military hospital (Grant, 2001).
Education Needs Assessment Data Collection Tool
The recent past few decades has seen an upsurge in the educational needs assessments in various health institutions across the globe. This has been informed by the direct need to stay relevant and keep afloat in a competing field. It has also been encouraged by the need to identify the gaps in behavior, skills, knowledge and attitude in the present operational practices within the health institutions. Such assessments also put the institutions in better positions of anticipating any deficiencies and subsequently laying out strategies of addressing them (McCawley, 2009, p. 44).
In order go get the most credible and reliable data about the above information, a number of tools and equipment were applied to collect data in a military hospital. Some of the tools included the questionnaire surveys, focus group discussions, Chart-Stimulated recall, and the use of Standardized patients. Others were interviews and chart audits (Ratnapalan & Hilliard, 2006).
Questionnaires contain a list of written specific questions that seek to elicit responses from the respondents in regards to specific subjects. This needs assessment administered questionnaires to a number of respondents within the military hospital. The questionnaires were designed to address an array of subjects under study. Because of their low costs and simplicity in administration, they are very familiar with the respondents (Brace, 2008, p. 29). These questionnaires can be designed in such that they capture and address the gist of the study. The main reasons for choosing the questionnaire is because of their simplicity, familiarity with the respondents and their inexpensive nature.
They are also capable of reaching out to a large number of respondents and can also be answered anonymously. However, care must be taken in designing them because they are capable of inducing poor response rates because of their rigidity. The quality of the obtained data is directly proportional to that of the questions in the feedback form (Kvale,1996). For this reason, developing the questions must involve a lot of strategic planning in compliance with the subject of study.
Nevertheless questionnaires are limited in scope since they only provide self-assessed reports. Some may also present infinite detailed responses because they are only confined to the needs and wants of the responses. In this regard, surveys come in handy since they too aid in the provision of reliable information for the needs assessment (Kapardis, 2009, p. 29). Questionnaires would be randomly to the respondents within the hospital facility. Special random selection criteria would be used to identify the exact nature of the person answering the questionnaire questions. For instance, the questionnaires designed to patients can be administered by giving one to every fifth patient in a block.
The Target Group
This educational needs assessment would target all the healthcare employees who offer professional services to patients at the medical surgical unit. The targeted health care professional would be grouped into two in accordance with their working experience. This is based on the fact that these two groups might have different needs in matters related to medicine. For instance, older and more experienced professionals would be more interested in up scaling their expertise and learning the applications and uses of new machines, equipment and software. On the other hand, newly registered nurses could be more interested in acquiring new skills and learning about the operations of the hospital. All the target group professionals are nurses in the medical-surgical unit of the military hospital.
In either of the cases, the educational courses would help bridge the knowledge gaps, upgrade the professionals on fresh ideas on the market, and instill the necessary skills for health care provision excellence. In addition, the performance of the members of staff would be enhanced for the welfare of the patients.
Problems Related to the Needs Assessment
The conduction of this needs assessment is prone to be laced with a number of problems and issues. To begin with, most of the respondents are active participants in the provision of health care services to patients in the military hospital. In some way, they might interpret the whole activity as an exercise to investigate their performance credentials. They would therefore most unlikely to cooperate with the researchers (Dean, n.d).
When such a thing happens, there would not be valid information for the research. In other instances, the data collection tools might prove to be not adequately efficient for acquiring some specific data needed. For instances, the questionnaires that are administered are normally designed to contain closed ended questions. This could limit the ability of the respondent in giving an explanation or an explanation behind a topic (Brown, n.d.).
Data Analysis
After receiving all the available data from the respondents, a process of sorting them out ensued. Questionnaires from those healthcare professionals who have wider medical experiences were sorted out separately from those of new entrants into the field. It is important to note that although there is a variety of data collection methods such as interviews and observations, this study only relied on the questionnaires (King & Horrocks, 2010). The documented results of the interviews were also tabulated as well. While grouping out the questionnaires from the experienced members of staff, due diligence was paid to the relationship of their years of experience and the ease with which they embraced new tools and technologies (Armoni, 2002, p. 23).
Answers on questions based on the knowledge of operating some of these latest medical equipment were as tabulated (Yeung, 2010). Out of the thirty doctors who were sampled, it was discovered that only ten had skills on how to operate a Continuous VCG machine and only eleven could effectively handle a Cardiovascular Function Analyzer (CFA). Meanwhile, the Heart Rate Variability (HRV) could competently be managed by only fourteen doctors. On the other hand, Signal Averaged ECG (SA-ECG) had a whooping twenty-three professionals who could not effectively handle it.
The other group of questionnaires that were answered by the health professionals who were new in the field also portrayed a number of variability. In this group, a total of fifty nurses who were new entrants in the field were sampled and issued with questionnaires. The questionnaires were designed to test several nursing skills possessed by the new nurses. The results showed that out of the one hundred sampled nurses, thirty of them admitted to lack patient care skills. But a whooping seventy-two of them conferred that they are not well conversant with some or all of the technological skills needed to enhance their performance within the hospital. Meanwhile, only ten of the fresh recruits lacked adequate communication skills needed to handle patients and colleagues. Surprisingly, only eight nurses admitted to be devoid of resource management skills.
The other crucial pieces of information, which could not be collected using the questionnaire alone due to the uniqueness of the hospital set-up, were captured through the use of opcare, tracheotomy care and infection control techniques.
Discussions
The results of this study portray an insightful picture of the exact state of affairs within this hospital set-up. To begin with, in the first group, about one third of the doctors possessed the relevant knowledge on how to operate a Continuous VCG machine. For a military hospital where quite a number of patients are likely to experience heart diseases due to their nature of assignments, this is a worrying figure. However, it was encouraging to find out that almost fifty per cent of all doctors in this medical facility could fairly handle Cardiovascular Function Analyzer (CFA).
The same percentage was demonstrated of Heart Rate Variability (HRV). Again, this makes the patients of heart attack, stress and depression a lucky lot. This spells fortune for patients with blood viscosity, sclerosis coefficient, arterial compliance and cardiac output. The shocking part of this study was the realization that the Signal Averaged ECG (SA-ECG) could only be handled by an eighth of the doctors. Indeed this explains why deaths related to cardiac arrests are frequently reported in this military hospital. There needs to be put in place strategies to offer training and educational courses to doctors in this responsive (American Holistic Nurses’ Association, 2009).
The second group of questioners did also revealed equally worrying statistics. Thirty per cent of the nurses could not effectively handle patients because they lacked such skills. On the other hand, seventy per cent lacked adequate technological know-how to carry out their duties. In a world that is fast pacing towards technological methodologies, this is not only worrying but also shocking. The need for education and training in this sector could therefore not have come at a better time.
It is also important for the implementation committee to appreciate the fact that communication skills not only play an important role in the care and treatment of patients, but also in the relation and operation with colleagues. Therefore, an urgent need to avail training and education to the ten per cent nurses who lack the skills should come in handy. They should also be trained and educated on the manner in which health care resources should be managed.
Educational Needs and Rationale
The resultant data tabulated above provides a good pointer to the implantation committee on the areas that are most pressing and subsequently need attention of urgency. This would aid in the preparation of the most up to date course outline in respect to the subjects that are of much weight. In this case, the implementation committee should prioritize the preparation of course manuals that would help train as many doctors as possible on the use of Signal Averaged ECG (SA-ECG) equipment. This is owed to the fact that this military hospital has only twelve per cent professionals who can handle it. This is despite the fact that the machine’s applicability is consistently in the rise owing to the ever-increasing number of stress cases around the globe.
The implementation committee should also take into consideration the provision of technological skills as a matter of priority to the new nurses. This is because the results of the study showed that a huge number of the nurses lacked these skills despite the fact that many of the operations in many hospitals are technology-sensitive. The skills for caring for the patients should come second in priority in accordance with the results of the study. A course manual on the educational guidelines that reflects these needs should thereafter be prepared.
Conclusion
The availability of credible data is very vital for planning purposes. This implies that a lot of emphasis should be put in place on the type and criteria of the tools for collecting the data. This study used questionnaires and interviews to acquire data from the respondents. The data was then analyzed using SPSS. The result of this study was given to the policy makers to use to prepare educational courses for learning by members of the staff. In a case where wrong data was collected, then it would imply that wrong course contents would be developed for learning. This calls for regular needs assessment to ascertain the gaps and deficiencies of study.
References
American Holistic Nurses’ Association. (2009). Holistic nursing: A handbook for practice. New York, NY: Jones & Bartlett Publishers.
Armoni, A. (2002). Effective healthcare information systems. New York, NY: Idea Group Inc (IGI).
Brace, I. (2008). Questionnaire design: How to plan,structure and write survey material for effective market research. London: Kogan Page Publishers.
Brown, K. L. (n.d). Needs Assessment for IERI Scale-Up Research Projects. Web.
Dean, S. (n.d). Critical Issues in Needs Assessment. Web.
Grant, J. (2001). Learning needs assessment: assessing the need. Web.
Kapardis, A. (2009). Psychology and Law: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
King, N., & Horrocks, C. (2010). Interviews in Qualitative Research. Oliver: SAGE Publications Ltd.
Kvale, S. (1996). Interviews: An Introduction to Qualitative Research Interviewing. Web.
Lopez, J., & Maoulidi, M. (2009, Sep). Education needs assessment for Mekelle City, ethiopia. Web.
McCawley, P. F. (2009). Methods for Conducting an Educationa Needs Assessment. Web.
Ratnapalan, S., & Hilliard, R. L. (2006). Needs Assessment in Postgraduate Medical Education: A Review. Web.
Rouda, R. H., & Kusy, M. E. (1995). Needs of Assessment. Web.
Save the Children. (2007). Educational Needs Assessment Relating to Cham and Migrant Children in Kampong Cham Province. Web.
Yeung, R. (2010). Successful Interviewing and Recruitment – Creating Success Series. London: Kogan Page Publishers.
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