Curriculum Develoment

Learning is a life-long commitment. Learning emulates self-esteem, broadens knowledge and hastens skills, and improves overall performance in workplaces. According to "Bellevue College Continuing Education" (2016), “Employers in almost every industry are revamping job descriptions, and workers need to be adaptable, lifelong learners to keep up with their rapidly evolving workplace. These shifting times require that employees master emergent skills and understand disciplines outside their comfort zones.”

In today’s culture and economic stage, identifying and understanding the learning needs in work settings are imperative to keep an organization in a competitive and indispensable state in the arena of their expertise. This paper will discuss the writer’s place of employment as to the type of institution; the kind of nursing care or services that the organization delivers, and the magnitude of activity as well as the levels of nursing care staff that are employed. Included in this journal is a summary of the educational needs assessment and its analysis; the determination of the educational need with the highest priority; and the institutional factors that support and oppose about the educational need. Lastly, this paper will elaborate the next steps for the organization in response to the educational need identified as the highest priority.

Type of Institution and Type of Nursing Care or Service Kaiser Permanente is a consortium of integrated managed care system that is made up of three interdependent entities: the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc. (KFHP) and its regional operating subsidiaries; Kaiser Foundation Hospitals; and the regional Permanente Medical Groups (Kaiser Permanente, 2016). According to "Kaiser Permanente" (2016), “Each Permanente Medical Group operates as a separate for-profit partnership or professional corporation in its individual territory, and while none publicly reports its financial results, each is primarily funded by reimbursements from its respective regional Kaiser Foundation Health Plan entity. KFHP is one of the largest not for profit organizations in the United States.” The group was given four out of four stars in two of their regional groups for meeting the national standards of care as stated in the California Healthcare Quality Report Card 2013 Edition (Kaiser Permanente, 2016).

Kaiser Permanente has a vast array of services that involves nursing care. Nursing participates in almost all of the departments in the hospital setting in relations to providing care for patients or individuals. The units include Oncology, Labor and delivery, Palliative Care, Pediatrics, and all other specialty areas. Services for nursing care also extends to the Continuum of Care, and these are outpatient services wherein this writer is currently employed. Areas included in the care continuum are home health, hospice, and skilled nursing.

Volume of Activity and Levels of Nursing Care Staff

According to “Kaiser Permanente” (2016), “As of 2014, Kaiser Permanente has 9.6 million health plan members, 177,445 employees, 17,791 physicians, 49,778 nurses, 38 medical centers, and 620 medical offices.” The numbers provided can give a snapshot of the amount of activities that occur in the organization. The magnitude of health plan members that the group caters their services with is a gauge of the people’s commitment and trust with the team and in their ability to provide the care that they seek.

The 2014 Kaiser Permanente annual report stated that there are 49, 778 nurses employed by the organization ("Kaiser Permanente Careers", 2016). The nursing care staff comprise of nurse assistants, licensed vocational nurses, registered nurses, nurse practitioners, and other specialty levels of nursing expertise. The levels of care vary upon career settings, including inpatient, outpatient, home health, skilled nursing and hospice ("Kaiser Permanente Careers", 2016).

Summary of educational needs assessment and analysis. The placement hub has been chosen to facilitate an educational needs assessment. The placement center is an area in the continuum of care department that comprises of seven licensed vocational nurses that are responsible for processing an inpatient referral with the goal of locating a skilled nursing facility for patients that are needing a lower level of care. The nurses utilize an electronic referral system called “Allscripts” in processing case referrals sent to the hub for placement. Allscripts uploads referral information and transmits the data to skilled nursing facilities that has a subscription to the same system. The data entry can be quite complicated to the untrained and even some of the trained staff.

The challenge that the nurses face currently is closing the referral accurately. The referrals received from the hospitals include both members and non-members. Closing the referrals of non-members so as not to be captured in the reports that sent to the interdisciplinary team (IDT) is where the hub placement team often fail to execute. Inaccuracy can lead to inadvertent misuse of IDT’s precious time in assessing patients or members promptly. It is, therefore, imperative that this oversight of data entry addressed accordingly.

Highest priority educational need and factors affecting the need. The primary need for education identified is in closing the referral in utmost accuracy. Addressing this gap can avoid misinformation and prevent time wasted by the IDT in admitting patients who are non-members, who are followed and accepted by the facility’s care providers.

Quality and integrity are some of the pillars of excellence of the organization. This being said, management and leaders are all support in the educational need that has been assessed and analyzed as having the highest priority that affects the hub placement team. The only obstacle in achieving the goal for this educational need is staffing constraints. With the vacation requests and sick calls in contrast with the daily referrals transmitted from the hospitals, staffing is just enough to perform daily tasks and not having enough time for training or in-service.

Next steps. Membership keeps growing every year at Kaiser Permanente. The accommodation of needs brought about by an increasing growth in membership, the organization is opening up additional positions in areas that need additional staffing. Also, management has authorized the use of on-call licensed nurses to work extra days to accomplish the educational learning needs of the department. This initiative is in line with their Nursing’s mission which according to "Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc." (2016), “…is to drive standards of excellence in clinical knowledge and practice through education, implementation of best practices and interdisciplinary collaboration in the pursuit of extraordinary care to every patient every time.”

Conclusion

Educational learning is a continuous process. It is a tool that is utilized to empower individuals as well as an institution. According to Hauer, & Quill (2011), “Educational needs assessment is conducted to identify deficiencies in the current teaching practices, or to anticipate deficiencies based on expected changes in health care needs. It is a critical stage in the development or review of educational curriculum.” As educational need shifts frequently happen in health care, it is tantamount for any organization to keep the workforce abreast with the learning needs so as to maintain high performance as well as enhance the competence and skill levels of the staff.

The paper has elaborated the type of institution the writer is employed to; the category of nursing care or services that the institution delivers; and the extent of activity as well as the status of nursing care staff that are employed. Also tackled in this journal is a summary of the educational needs assessment and its analysis; the establishment of the educational need with the highest priority; and the institutional factors that support and barriers to the educational need. Lastly, this paper has amplified the next steps of the organization towards the educational need identified as the highest priority.

References

Bellevue College Continuing Education. (2016). Retrieved from http://www.bellevuecollege.edu/ce/lifelong-learning-benefits-body-mind-and-career/

Hauer, J., & Quill, T. (2011). Educational needs assessment, development of learning objectives, and choosing a teaching approach. Journal Of Palliative Medicine, 14(4), 503-508. doi:10.1089/jpm.2010.0232