Learning Needs Assessment - Essay Example

Learning Needs Assessment The type of in which a learning needs assessment is carried out is a hospital that offers health care services to American especially those who live in Southern Brooklyn. The hospital’s name is Coney Island Hospital in Brooklyn, New York. Its history began in 19th century when the institution started as a station for first aid for those going to the beach for summer. Today, the hospital has increased in size and has been in a position of catering to all the community’s illnesses. The hospital has been well recognized for being able to treat thyroid cancers of high incidence of the survivors in Ukraine and Russia that was caused by an accident that was caused by Chernobyl nuclear reactor. Coney Island Hospital is under the New York City Health and Hospital Corporation (HHC) which happens to be the county’s the largest health care system in the region serving more than 1.3 million people in New York. The hospital system is comprised of eleven acute hospital care centers, four nursing facilities that are skilled, six diagnostic centre that also carries out treatment and at least eighty clinic that are set up in the community. Home based health care services are also offered to the residents by HHC health care system. 1 The hospital has also embarked to other services like healthy heart program as it served Bangladeshi, Pakistan and Indian communities when it came to their attention that these populations have a higher chance of being diagnosed with Coronary artery disease. The hospital is also known for being the first facility of HHC to start a Mosque and to serve halal food. Currently, statistics shows that the hospital has a workforce of 39,000 employees who offer health care services to the residents ranging from housekeepers to surgeon of the trauma. In their social responsibility, the hospital has embarked in a campaign that is supposed to increase safety, prevent and bring a culture of learning that is fair and just with an intention of bring accountability. The hospital’s mission is to become one of the best health care centres in the country come year 2010. Coney Island Hospital is committed in its health care services and they vision mostly is to ensure that it provide high quality health care facilities to New York residents especially the poor ones. The hospital is run by all professional in the medical field that offer medical care services to all the 1.3 million residents and this also include 400,000 residents who do not have health insurance. The hospital is also capable of handling all illness that that range from a minor to a major one since it has all specialist in the medical field. Since the hospital caters for over 1.3 million people, they have beehive activities in the facilities. The hospital has a bed capacity if 387 according to the 2006 statistics that was collected and in that year alone, it had attended to 260,000 patients. The statistics also showed that the hospital has discharged 18,247 patients in the same year of 2006. in their maternity wards, the hospital recorded 1,006 births and this is a very high number of births as compared to its population. The high number of births was a result of the program the hospital is carrying out for the mothers. In their wellness year 2000 initiative, they had an aim of catering for mother to be when they introduced a highly technological facility to cater for mothers that are delivering in the hospital. To ensure they offer the best delivering facilities for the mothers, the hospital has a well technological labor and delivery suite that is equipped with the most recent medical equipments to ensure that the mother and the child are taken care of during delivery. The hospital is popular for it campaign in ensuring they curb breast diseases in their breast health center. The hospital ensures that it offer health care facilities to all irregardless of their age. In their adolescence health program, the hospital offer health care facilities to the adolescents especially those who are in the age bracket of between the ages of 12 to 21 years. In this health program, their main aim is to help the adolescents to cope with this most trying period of adolescence. The teenagers are counsel on various issues of life that would include about drug abuse and sexual transmitted diseases. They are also made aware of the challenge that they are expected to undergo in life and the way to cope with the situation. In the adolescent medical program also, the teenagers are informed on the various physical and emotional changes that are expected to happen during the adolescent period and this one ensure that they do not seems to be withdrawn after these changes start to develop. For this case, they are prepared on the changes that appear in the adolescent period so that the teenager will not view them as abnormal changes to their life which might psychologically affect their life. 2 The hospital is also popular for handling complicated problems that a poor person might not afford in other health care centers in New York. Coney Island hospital is also honored among the nation’s hospital for its health care services it provide and it was awarded an IPRO annual quality award due to the fact that they are in a position to handle patients with pneumonia, Acute Myocardial Infarction and heart failure. The IPRO recognition is such a boost to the hospital since it is among the two hospitals statewide to have been recognized for handling these diseases excellently among all the other health care centers in the entire nation. IPRO role is an organization that is known for reviewing health care quality in New York and ensures that Medicaid and Medicare are of the highest quality. This ensures that the residents have access to the best quality health care services in the region due to the high standards laid down by IPRO. 3 Due to the fact that the hospital is dedicated to offer affordable health care services to New York residents especially the poor residents, the hospital is usually very busy all year round. As far as the level of nursing care staff that has been employed by the hospital is concerned, the hospital employs the most qualified nurses in the region. The hospital’s mission is to offer the best employment opportunity for health care workers who are eager to grow professionally in their nursing career. Due to the fact that the hospital is certified by IPRO for treating very complicated diseases as pneumonia, heart failure and Acute Myocardial Infarction, it shows clearly that the hospital has employed the best staff to handle these cases. This is so because, IPRO is charged with the responsibility of ensuring that Medicare and Medicaid are of the highest quality so that the patients illness are attended to in a professional manner according to the nursing professional codes and ethics. According to my observation, even if the hospital is recognized for their excellent health care services it offers to their patient in the region, there is need to enhance training and development to their staffs. In my research in the hospital, I can satisfy that Coney Island has no plan of offering further education to its employees. The only thing they advocate is that they welcome those in the nursing field to come and work with them to expand their career. However, any of their staff willing to further their studying nursing education, he is given necessary support to do so but not financial support. Organization that excel in the current economy usually enhance on the training and development of their employees to ensure that they are equipped with the latest development in their field of career. The only training and development in the hospital that is available in the hospital is where the staff attends seminars, workshops and other health care conferences to get the latest in the medical field. 4 Coney Island hospital has also ensured that they staff do share experiences and latest development in the field of nursing. They ensure the staff intranet to share their development in the field. It is very essential for the hospital to assess the need to training for their employees in order for them to equip them with the latest development in the nursing education. Before any training can be conduct on the employees, they need to know the usefulness of the kind of knowledge the employees are embarking on. For this case, there need to ensure they embark on the training that would be of beneficial to them in the career development. 5 The highest priority educational need that is necessary as far as Coney Island Hospital staffs are concerned is on training bariatric surgeon specialists. According to the hospital’s statistics, there is acute shortage on specialist to handle these illnesses in the hospital. For this case, the hospital management ought to identify staffs among their employees who can be sponsored for further education so that they can be able to handle bariatric patients who are undergoing surgery in the hospital. According to the hospital president’s annual report to the board of director, he had indicated the need for ensuring that they send some staffs for further training on handling excessive weight complications which was understaffed. The staff had no problem on being sent for further training to curb with these illnesses as long as the management approves this training scheme. 6 Excessive weight to patient is has health complication and for this case, there is also a need to ensure that training and development is emphasized on this area. For this case, there is need to train more bariatric specialist to curb with the excessive weight complications. Since Coney Island President report the need for education need to the board of directors of the hospital, a follow up is necessary to ensure necessary steps are taken in training and developing skilled health care workers for the institution for the sake offering high quality medical care services to the New York residents. According to the hospital’s organization structure, the senior executive staff is under the board of directors and he should be the next person to be made aware of the need for responding to the education need in the hospital. References Bloom, B. (1956). Taxonomy of Cognitive Objectives. New York, McKay Maher, A. (2004). Learning Outcomes in Higher Education - Implications for Curriculum Design and Student learning. Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism Education, 3 (2), 46-54. McAlpine, M. (2002). Principles of Assessment: University of Luton: CAA Centre. Available at, http://caacentre.lboro.ac.uk/dldocs/Bluepaper1.pdf, accessed on March 12, 2007 The City of New York (2007): Report to the Board of Directors Watson, P. (2002): The role and integration of learning outcomes into the educational process. Active Learning in Higher Education, 3 (3), 205-219. Read More