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Needs Assessment Plan- Susan Scenario

Objectives

1. Outline a plan for performing a needs assessment for training and development purposes
2. Identify and create a way to determine the sensory learning styles of employees
3. Evaluate training models appropriate for use for department-wide topics
4. Evaluate continuing education methods appropriate to use for specific HIM positions

Instructions

Review the scenario provided and develop a training and development plan to be submitted to the chief financial officer (CFO).

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Scenario

Susan is the newly hired director of HIM at a rural 250-bed hospital. She was hired when the previous HIM director retired. During her interview, Susan was identified as being highly qualified and very enthusiastic about the HIM profession. Susan holds an RHIA credential and is working on her master’s degree in organizational leadership. The previous director had been in place for over 25 years and her last two annual evaluations noted that she was not keeping pace with HIM industry standards. The HIM department has the following employees:

• Two transcriptionists with no credentials
• Two release-of-information (ROI) coordinators, one Registered Health Information Technician (RHIT) and one trained on the job
• Five coders, of which two hold RHITs, two with the Certified Coding Specialist (CCS) credential only, and one with the Certified Coding Associate (CCA) credential only
• One HIM supervisor who is RHIT-eligible, newly hired, with less than a year of management experience
• Four document imaging specialists with no credentials
• Two chart completion clerks with no credential
• One data quality specialist which is an open position,

RHIT credential required Susan has been directed by her boss, the CFO, to plan for specific positions in the department to be converted to remote positions because the hospital needs space to increase cardiac services. In the four months Susan has been leading the department, she has realized that there are serious knowledge gaps for many of the employees and many of them are not meeting monthly productivity or quality performance standards. Susan knows that there is a real risk to sending many of these individuals home to work because of the identified performance issues. She has decided a training and development plan will be necessary to prepare the majority of the workforce to work remotely. Needs Assessment Plan- Susan Scenario

Assumptions

• It is evident that the HIM employees are in need of training and development, but there is no departmental education plan in place and no record of any formal training or development programs offered in the last two years.
• There are acceptable productivity and quality performance standards in place for all of the positions, including the open position.
• There are no financial resources in the current budget to cover training and development activities, but the CFO indicated that he could make resources available on a limited basis.
• There is no education department but the HR department is able to assist with training needs.
• The CFO told Susan that she has six months to transition the employees to work remotely.
• The open data quality specialist position is a line item on the HIM budget that needs to be filled within the next month or the position is in jeopardy of being eliminated in the next fiscal year’s budget process.

Deliverables – This is what you will need to do and submit Create a training and development plan for the HIM department that includes the following items:

1. A method for assessing the needs and knowledge gaps for all HIM employees, including management ­positions. Design the assessment instrument.
2. A plan for identifying the sensory learning styles of the HIM department employees.
3. Develop a six-month training and development program for each of the employee categories listed previously. The plan should consist of the following:

• Identify at least two training topics that all employees have in common and a different training model to use for each of the two training topics.
• Create a CE plan for each credentialed position: ROI coordinator, coder, HIM supervisor, and data quality ­specialist. Include both on-site and off-site CE opportunities.
• Be mindful of budgetary constraints.
• A template is provided in figure 9.2 on page 194 for guidance. A different template may be created

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