Introduction
Veteran Health Administration is the largest integrated healthcare network in the United States of America. Its affordable prices as well as its high quality services are some of the reasons why it has succeeded as the leading provider of healthcare in the United States of America. Veteran Health Administration success can be linked to its leadership ability to realize the importance of electronic system in ensuring efficient and effective services.
The system has established a computerized patient record as well as a Bar-Code Medication Administration that greatly facilitates the administration of services within the system. Because of its good services, Veteran Health Administration has continued to increase in size as well as in the number of patients it attends. Currently, it has 152 medical centers and 1,400 community clinics which attend over 5 million patients.
The system requires an advanced technology because of the large number of facilities it supports as well as the large number of patients it is currently handling. An advance technology will enable it to handle its current demands more efficiently. Veteran Health Administration is facing some challenges such as lack of enough experts from various specializations who can assist in the learning process.
Thus, a more efficient technology is needed to help in enhancing knowledge sharing within the centers. Lack of appropriate communication technologies in the center has been noted to make the system become less efficient. Subsequently, there has been noted an increase in the number of patients who experience dissatisfactions because of poor treatment from Veteran Health Administration centers and clinics.
This is because the few experts that are present are not in a position to share their vast knowledge across all Veteran Health Administration centers and clinics.
Purpose
The purpose of this White Paper is to present the leadership of Veteran Health Administration with a concept and framework of establishing a face to face learned session that will cause implementation of Real Time Location System across all VA Integrated System Networks.
The implementation of the system will highly help to improve administrative as well as clinic processes, in addition, to enable sharing of lessons learned. This will enable the few available experts to adequately teach about some of the challenges that are being faced by various practitioners as well as communicate best practices that all staffs should uphold.
Learning before doing
Learning before doing is imperative as it makes the learning process more efficient and effective. Before engaging in the actual learning session, it is very essential to first prepare the minds of the learners. The learning before doing approach is a best approach to facilitate the learning process. For instance, the Veteran Healthcare Administration considers learning before doing as a good move. In doing so, the system ensures that it follows all the necessary steps in accomplishing its mission.
One important consideration it should ensure is making sure that the potential benefits outweigh the costs incurred. Moreover, it should make sure that it has exhausted all its available resources before engaging external support.
Thus, Veteran Healthcare Administration should first make use of its few but very experienced professionals to transfer as well as share about some important challenges experienced by its workforce in their day-to-day endeavors. It is generally accepted that people are willing to learn and share from their peers.
Thus, requesting the few professionals available to assist in the learning before doing phase will greatly boost the success of the project. The administration should also invite more experts to offer peer assistance.
The professionals invited should be highly knowledgeable in their area of specialization in order to assist in the transfer of appropriate knowledge. In addition, they should be inclusive of professionals from diverse fields in order to offer comprehensive assistance on all the challenging areas of interest to the workforce.
Learning before doing is imperative as it makes it possible for the learning team to supplement its knowledge by borrowing from outside the team. Moreover, the session enables the team to be in a position to identify new options, questions as well as possibilities. This method will assist the veteran Healthcare Administration to establish strong bonds among the participants involved.
The management should consider involving a facilitator to guide and control the learning process in order to enhance effectiveness. This will help to spark interest that will result to the establishment of a community for future knowledge sharing and transfer.
The home peers who are the Veteran Healthcare employees with various challenges will benefit greatly from the visiting peers who comprise of experts from various areas of specializations who will be invited to share some of the problems they experience in the course of their duties.
In addition, conducting the doing before learning session will help to manage the expectations of the employees at Veteran Healthcare Administration because they are informed in advance about the actual value of the system.
The session will be imperative as it will help to prepare each individual through a face-to-face dialogue on what they are likely to expect during the RTLS implementation as well as clarify to them any issues that will be of interest to them. This way, the workforce will be briefed on the probable solutions to the expected challenges.
Conclusion
Having a lessons learned session is imperative as it is likely give the medical staffs at Veteran Healthcare administration an opportunity to receive proper updates on appropriate best practice methods they should embrace. It is from such sessions that the staff will get a chance to learn from individuals who have prior significant experiences as well as knowledge in their areas of specialization.
Moreover, the staff gets a chance to share experiences as well as insights from each other as well from the visiting experts. The sessions are instrumental as they offer an opportunity for the workers to ask relevant questions and receive feedbacks. This method will greatly help Veteran Healthcare Administration workforce to get appropriate support from their experiences as well as from the information they receive from experts.
Technology is very essential in the success of any system. In order to make the session more effective, the management should ensure that the project’s benefits outweigh its costs.
The employees should be encouraged to share their experiences in order to learn from each other. In addition, the management should engage outside professionals to share their vast knowledge to the home peers. Moreover, a facilitator should be engaged to oversee the learning process. Through this method, the Veteran Healthcare Administration employees will get a great learning opportunity.