The problem that has to be discussed within the framework of the current proposal is the lack of adequate clinician training and safety. Thus, the rationale behind addressing clinician training revolves around the need to investigate skills and knowledge possessed by care providers. On a long-term scale, it could become one of the best opportunities for the organization to implement educational programs and see how team members are going to respond to the proposed measures. Clinician training and safety is applicable to the homecare setting because it relates directly to the need to help patients establish a safer health environment at home.
Discussing Relevant Evidence
The issue of clinical training and safety being absent from the organizational environment represents an issue for healthcare facilities. For example, Quigley et al. (2019) suggest that there is a direct association between relevant clinical training and the incident of patient falls. This is an important finding that highlights the importance of taking notice of the homecare environment in advance. Thus, a detailed organizational assessment could uncover conundrums associated with clinical training and safety by emphasizing the role of providers’ knowledge and experience (Goolsarran et al., 2018). Without being familiar with the notions of clinical training and safety, providers will be prone to making mistakes when expected the least.
Analyzing the Current State of Affairs
One of the potential areas that could be contributing to the issue of the absence of clinical training and safety is the growing prevalence of the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, homecare specialists and academics are exposed to scenarios where they do not have enough knowledge or opportunities to address training and safety to a sufficient extent (Gallup et al., 2018). This idea is based on the increased financial expenditures that are expected to contribute to coronavirus-related investigations. In line with Johannessen et al. (2019), clinical training and safety cannot be overlooked because they underline providers’ ability to aid patients within any given environment. The growing prevalence of homecare reinforces the aforementioned belief and contributes to the existing discussion on education-based approaches to the care provision process.
Proposing a Solution
Based on the results of the investigation above, it can be hypothesized that a detailed clinical training and safety education program could become an efficient instrument when addressing patients’ health issues associated with homecare. Evidence from Ramsey et al. (2018) and Ree and Wiig (2020) makes it safe to say that the current gap between what providers know and implement should be closed as soon as possible. An educational program is the best choice for the current proposal because it is going to encourage all program participants to provide feedback and attain the next level of mastery in the field of clinical training and safety.
Conducting the Cost-Benefit Analysis
In order to implement the proposed educational program, the organization will have to gain access to relevant technology (for instance, laptops, tablets, or smartphones) that would support the given training sessions. Care providers will have to participate in the training in hybrid mode, meaning that some of the sessions could be carried out online, and the other ones would be conducted offline, with face-to-face contact. Even though monetary benefits cannot be estimated, it can be safe to say that the number of homecare injuries would reduce together with the prevalence of provider errors. Therefore, human and monetary resources will be saved without imposing any limitations on the organization and patient outcomes.
Generating the Implementation Timeline
Discussing Stakeholders
The three most important groups of stakeholders for the proposed educational program will be safety trainers, end-learners, and master facilitators. Safety trainers will be responsible for delivering care information to the receivers. Their feedback might be utilized to alter the program in the case where certain elements do not work as expected. End-learners (care providers) will be exposed to patient safety issues to learn more about homecare. It would be essential to maintain back-to-back communication with this group in order to assess the overall effectiveness of the program in real-time. As for the master facilitators, their key responsibility will be to focus on skill development and extend the successes achieved by safety trainers. Based on the commentary from master facilitators, the team could gain improved access to professional insights regarding homecare and the means of improving the latter.
Discussing the Implementation and Evaluation Processes
The implementation of the proposed educational program would take up to seven weeks overall (June-July 2022). The end-learners would participate in hybrid training sessions to assess their existing knowledge and investigate the possible ways of reducing the occurrence of injuries and deaths related to homecare. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed educational program, it would be necessary to collect baseline data from 2021 and the first half of 2022 regarding homecare patient injuries. At the end of 2022, post-training statistics will be compared to the baseline evidence.
Discussion of Roles
As for the roles that I have played during the processes of proposal development and investigation, there were three of them:
- As a scientist, I ensured to outline the key issues associated with homecare that could be addressed through the interface of clinical training and safety;
- As a detective, I examined the existing evidence and developed a proposal that would consider research gaps and connect theory and practice;
- As a manager of the healing environment, I applied clinical training and safety education program to providers active in the field of homecare.
References
Gallup, A., Tomasson, J., & Svihla, V. (2018). Empowerment and constraint: Design of a homecare worker training program. International Journal of Designs for Learning, 9(1), 149-157.
Goolsarran, N., Hamo, C. E., Lane, S., Frawley, S., & Lu, W. H. (2018). Effectiveness of an interprofessional patient safety team-based learning simulation experience on healthcare professional trainees.BMC Medical Education, 18(1), 1-8.
Johannessen, T. B., Storm, M., & Holm, A. L. (2019). Safety for older adults using telecare: Perceptions of homecare professionals.Nursing Open, 6(3), 1254-1261.
Quigley, P. A., Votruba, L., & Kaminski, J. (2019). Outcomes of patient-engaged video surveillance on falls and other adverse events. Clinics in Geriatric Medicine, 35(2), 253-263.
Ramsey, A. M., Brennan, S., Stricker, A., Riek, K., Brown, D., Gurtowsky, R.,… & Filbrun, A. G. (2018). Emergency airway and ventilator procedures for community-based home care staff validation of an educational program. Pediatric Pulmonology, 53(3), 374-380.
Ree, E., & Wiig, S. (2020). Linking transformational leadership, patient safety culture, and work engagement in homecare services.Nursing Open, 7(1), 256-264.