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Learning Needs Assessment

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Learning Needs Assessment Paper
Vicky Doss, RN, BSN
NUR 588-Developing and Evaluating Educational Programs
May 7, 2012
Monie Nuckles, MSN, RN, PhD(c)

Learning Needs Assessment
Continuing education is of the utmost importance to any organization regardless of type. In order for nurses to remain current and updated within their profession there must be access and motivation to education. Nurses must strive to increase their knowledge base to provide the best and most effective care based on the most recent evidence available. Nurses must have the necessary skills to remain competent in a quickly evolving health care system. “The provision of adequate, suitable, flexible, and quality continuing education that takes into account the needs of the individual nurse can lead to improvements in the quality of nursing care” (Claflin, 2005, p. 263). It is essential to provide the appropriate type of education, depending on the learner’s style in order for nurses to stay informed and adjust to the changes in the healthcare system and provide adequate care for the patients he/she treat. One of the most influential factors in the need for continuing education is the need to make sure that patients are treated in a cost and time effective manner to prevent readmissions and prolonged stays. In order for any of this to be effective, first the learning needs of the staff need to be assessed to discover what is important to them. Performing this needs assessment will allow the educator to make sure the most relevant topics addressed by the staff are those used to create an educational program. The issues of cost, buy-in, time constraints, and support from management are things that have to be addressed and considered prior to implementing a program once the needs assessment is complete. Educational needs assessment was conducted to identify what continuing education needs are of importance to staff in order to organize and arrange a program to address those needs.
Instrument
The institution reviewed is a government facility, a Department of Veterans Affairs Hospital in southwest Virginia. The nursing care provided at this facility ranges from long-term care to acute care. This facility typically treats 36,000-plus patients per year and admitted approximately 1000 patients per year. The nurses staffed employed by the facility range from CNA’s to RN’s.
Sample
A small sample of 10 registered nurses (RN’s) from the surgical intensive care unit (SICU) were chosen to review what they feel are some of the most important educational needs of their unit. The participants were all staff nurses with experience ranging from two to 20-plus years of experience. Each participant was given a three question questionnaire with verbal instructions on what was needed and make sure they had no issues regarding the questionnaire. This questionnaire was used to review what the RN’s believe were the greatest educational needs of the SICU.
Results
After review of the needs assessments completed by the 10 RN’s it was found that the needs addressed by the staff were that of documentation, cardiovascular, and neurological. The highest priority need at the current time for this unit is that of documentation. With the unit acting as a pilot for a new charting database there is need for reinforcement on the importance of charting even with the new database. Many of the staff interviewed felt as though the current database is very lengthy for nurses, and there are many issues with items that need to be in the database that are not. These are not new nurses and do not require education on the basics of documentation but require more about what is important to chart because certain items are not currently included in the database. The education required for this learning need will be one that will have to take into consideration various aspects of nursing; generation, culture, computer comfort, and gender. Allowing the staff to have input regarding specific educational needs Knowles states that will necessitate learning and allow the learner to identify what is important to them to help he/she direct their own learning (Grant, 2002).
Institutional Forces There are always barriers that have to be overcome to implement any new educational program. Factors that will have to be considered will be that of whether or not this education will stay strictly unit-based or could it possibly be rolled out hospital wide. One of the biggest issues regarding any education of this type would be that of time constraint not only for the educator teaching the session but also for the staff having to learn the information. If the information were presented in a fashion that meets and enhances the learning of the staff support from management would not be an issue. The educational need must be presented to management as a way to improve patient outcomes, without additional need of resources and will decrease costs.
Further Evaluation Needs To begin implementation of the learning programs regarding documentation the educator must address the nursing documentation specialist. There is a specific individual within the VA that deals strictly with nursing documentation, so this person would have to be addressed and provided with an opportunity to give input related to what will be taught. Once there is approval from this individual and the unit manager the educational program can be implemented within the unit. If this program proves to be successful at the unit level and management wishes to implement it hospital-wide there would have to be approval from the director and from the education department. Within the VA there is also the challenge of making sure that nothing being taught or done is in violation of union guidelines, so approval for this type of educational assessment will have to receive union approval.
Conclusion
Continuing education is essential to maintaining staff competency and knowledge. To keep up with ever changing needs of both the staff and the healthcare system frequent needs assessments need to be performed. Conclusions from review of this assessment found there were definite educational needs that require addressing. These needs can be addressed with ongoing continuing education. Most important is that the learning needs must be appropriate to the population being taught and that appropriate tools must be given to implement any new changes that need to be made. With any pilot being implemented there will be flaws and items that will need correction, and when this happens it can be discouraging to staff; this is why the high priority need is important to address. Even with needs as important as documentation there are always going to be obstacles that have to be overcome, whether it is that of cost, buy-in or support. The important thing is that these needs are brought to light an presented in a fashion that management understands that this will benefit not only the patient but also the well being of the medical center by reducing errors and resources.

References
Chaflin, N. (2005). Continuing education needs assessment of acute care and long-term care nurses in a Veterans Affairs medical center. The Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing, 36(6), 263-270.
Grant, J. (2002). Learning needs assessment: Assessing the need. British Medical Journal, 324, 156-159. doi: 10.1136/bmj.324.7330.156

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