APPLICATION OF RESEARCH

IN NURSING LEADERSHIP
AND MANAGEMENT
• Client Satisfaction Safety-
• The Health Care Services Client Satisfaction Questionnaire is conducted
regularly as part of the Department of Health and Social Services system
wide evaluation and reporting system.
• Client satisfaction is used to measure the effectiveness of health programs
and services and is an integral part of quality health care.
• Client satisfaction is also a requirement of quality assurance and
accreditation processes.
• Results from the survey help us to identify what we are doing well and
where opportunities for improvement exist
• What is a Patient Satisfaction Survey?
• A patient satisfaction survey is a set of questions used to
collect feedback from patients to measure their
satisfaction with the quality and care of the healthcare
service provider.
• The patient satisfaction survey questionnaire helps
adjudge basic metrics across patient care that aid medical
institutions in understanding the level of care provided
and pitfalls in service.
• Six underlying metrics which patient satisfaction should be measured on are:
• • Quality of medical care
• Interpersonal skills displayed by medical professionals
• Transparency and communication between care provider and patient
• Financial aspects of care
• Access to doctors and other medical professional
• Accessibility of care
• A patient satisfaction survey can be administered anytime during an electronic
medical record (EMR) or an electronic health record (EHR).
• It can be completed via mobile, physical copies of the survey, website, POS
device, computers in waiting rooms, or any other medium.
• Two examples of a patient satisfaction survey are the primary trauma survey
where the initial assessment and the management of a trauma patient that enters a
medical facility or a hospital are conducted.
• The second example of a patient satisfaction survey is a secondary trauma survey.
• It is an in-depth survey template that is carried out to identify the presence of
other significant but not immediately life threatening or other injuries that were
missed in the primary trauma survey.
• Both these sample survey templates collect data about a patient’s satisfaction
with how their trauma was dealt with at a hospital or medical facility
• Action Research
• Action Research is one of the most popular research strategies in nursing
and healthcare.
• It is widely used by practitioners who want to better understand and
undertake their work and students who need to do a research project for their
course.
• Action Research is evidence-based and links directly to practice, making it
the ideal method for a researcher in these fields.
• First used in 1946 by Kurt Lewin, a social scientist concerned with
intergroup relations and minority problems in the United States, the term is
now identified with research in which the researchers work explicitly with
and for people rather than undertake research on them.
• Its strength lies in its focus on generating solutions to practical problems
and its ability to empower practitioner engage with research and
subsequent “development” or implementation activities.
• Practitioners can choose to research their own practice, or an outside
researcher can be engaged to help them identify problems, seek and
implement practical solutions, and systematically monitor and reflect on
the process and outcomes of change.
• Most definitions of action research incorporate three important elements: -it’s
participatory character;
-it’s democratic impulse;
-and its simultaneous contribution to social science and social change.
• Four basic types of action research have been identified:
-experimental,
-organizational,
- professionalizing,
- and empowering.
• Though this typology is useful in understanding the wide range of action research, its
multidimensional nature means that it is not particularly easy to classify individual
studies.
• For instance, a study might be classified as “empowering” because of its “bottom up
approach” in relation to the fourth distinguishing criterion of “change intervention,”
but the other distinguishing criteria may be used to classify the same study as a
different action research type (experimental, organizational, or professionalizing).
• This situation is most likely to occur if the researcher and practitioners hold differing
views on the nature of society.
• It may be more fruitful to use this typology as a framework for critiquing individual
studies and, in particular for thinking about how concepts are operationalized, the
features of particular settings, and the contribution of the people within those settings
to solutions
• Feasibility Study-
• A feasibility study is part of the initial design stage of any project/plan.
• It is conducted in order to objectively uncover the strengths and
weaknesses of a proposed project or an existing business.
• It can help to identify and assess the opportunities and threats present in
the natural environment, the resources required for the project, and the
prospects for success.
• It is conducted in order to find answers to the following questions:
• • Does the company possess the required resources and technology?
• • Will the company receive a sufficiently high return on its investment?
• Additionally, a feasibility study is an analysis that considers all of a project's
relevant factors—including economic, technical, legal, and scheduling
considerations—to ascertain the likelihood of completing the project successfully.
• Whether a project is feasible or not can depend on several factors, including the
project's cost and return on investment, meaning whether the project generated
enough revenue or sales from consumers.
• However, a feasibility study isn't only used for projects looking to measure and
forecast financial gains.
• In other words, feasible can mean something different, depending on the industry
and the project's goal.
• For example, a feasibility study could help determine whether a hospital can
generate enough donations and investment dollars to expand and build a new
cancer center
• Training Need Analysis
• Training Needs Analysis (TNA) is the process in which the company
identifies training and development needs of its employees so that they
can do their job effectively.
• It involves a complete analysis of training needs required at various
levels of the organization.
• A TNA considers the skills, knowledge, emotional intelligence and
behaviors that the people who work for an organization need, and how to
develop them effectively.
• There are three different types of training need:
• 1. Organizational Level
• Once you have a strategic picture of your organization’s
objectives, performance and future direction, this can be reviewed
from the perspective of the knowledge, skills and behaviors that
can help your organization to build on its strengths and address
weaknesses.
• Training/learning needs analysis at this level would start with a
review of the organization’s strategic and operational plans.
• 2. Team Level
• Analysis of training/learning needs should also be undertaken at
department/team level.
• This usually means reviewing the competency needs and skill sets within a
team against the team’s own objectives and desired business objectives.
• It will involve taking into account both the needs of individuals, but also
anything that can help the department/team to work together as effectively as
possible.
• This will generally include consideration of information gained from
appraisals or performance reviews.
• Reference can also be made to relevant competency frameworks for jobs or
types of work.
• 3. Individual Level Appraisal and supervision one-to-one
meetings allow individuals to reflect on their own training/
learning needs in relation to their work objectives.
• This helps to identify what needs to improve – whether this be
through a training program that they are required to complete or
other continued professional
• Steps in Needs Analysis:
• Step 1: Identify users and uses of the need analysis.
• • The users of the analysis are those who will act on the basis of
the report. • Knowing the uses of the need analysis can help focus
on the problems and solutions that can be entertained.
• Step 2: Describe the target population and the service environment.
• • For example, geographic dispersion may include transportation, demographic
characteristics of the target population, eligibility restrictions, and service capacity.
Client analysis refers to the comparison of those who use services with those who
are eligible to use services. Resource inventories detail services available.
• Step 3: Identify needs. • Describe problems According to McKillip (1987), three
types of problems are identified by need analysis:
• • Discrepancies: “Problems are revealed by comparison of expectations with
outcomes.
• Discrepancies are problems”.
• • Poor outcome:
• Problems involve those at-risk of developing poor outcomes •
Maintenance need:
• “A group with maintenance needs can develop poor outcomes if
services presently offered are withdrawn or altered”
• Bradshaw identified four types of outcome expectations that support judgments of needs
(McKillip, 1987):
• • Normative need: Expectations based on expert identification of adequate levels of
performance or service.
• • Felt need: Expectations that members of a group have for their own outcomes (e.g., parents’
expectations about the appropriate amount of elementary level mathematics instruction).
• • Expressed need: Expectations based on behavior of a target population. Expectations are
indicated by use of services (e.g., waiting lists, enrollment pressure, or high bed occupancy
rates).
• • Comparative need: Expectations based on the performance of a group other than the target
population. (Comparative expectations mainly depend on the similarity of the comparison group
and the target population.
• In addition, such expectations can neglect unique characteristics that invalidate generalizations.
• • Describe solutions
• There are three criteria (dimensions) for evaluating solutions:
• • Cost analysis
• • Impact
• • Feasibility
• Step 4:
• Assess the importance of the needs
• • Once problems and their solutions have been identified, needs are evaluated.
Step 5: Communicate results.
• • Finally, the results of the need identification must be communicated to
decisions makers, users, and other relevant audiences.
• Evaluation Studies
• Evaluation research, also known as evaluation research or program
evaluation, is a type of research you can use to evaluate a product or concept
and collect data that helps improve your solution.
• Evaluation research is defined as a form of disciplined and systematic
inquiry that is carried out to arrive at an assessment or appraisal of an object,
program, practice, activity, or system with the purpose of providing
information that will be of use in decision making.
• Disciplined and systematic inquiry is described in terms of the quantitative
and qualitative methods of the behavioral and social sciences.
• Development of the field of evaluation research, leading to the evolution of
evaluation as a distinct field of
• inquiry, and the setbacks it has experienced, are described.
• Methods for monitoring or influencing the conduct of an
evaluation are identified.
• Evaluation research aims in providing the researcher with
the assessments of the past, present or proposed programs
of action.
• The methodology that is involved in evaluation research
is managerial and provides management assessments,
impact studies, cost benefit information, or critical path
analysis.
• Steps for Writing an Evaluation Essay .
• We’ve put together a brief outline of some of the most important
steps to help with producing a well structured paper.
• 1. Choose your topic. As with any essay, this is one of the first
steps . It may be the case that you are allocated a topic by your
professor, but if not then we would advise choosing a subject that
you are already familiar with.
• You are going to need to take an in depth look at the subject in
order to make a judgement on its value, so it makes sense to
choose something you already have some knowledge about.
• 2. Write a thesis statement.
• This is a key element of your essay as it sets out the overall purpose of the evaluation.
• In the thesis you should state the criteria being used to judge the item and state the value of
the item .
• As with any essay, your statement must be apparent and to the point.
• You may find that you need to revise it slightly along the way as your essay takes shape.
• 3. Determine the criteria used to assess the product.
• Choose several different benchmarks in order to make your writing interesting.
• The criteria you choose will vary depending on what you are evaluating.
• For example, a software program would be judged using very different benchmarks than a
clothing brand
• 4. Look for supporting evidence.
It is important to remember that an essay is not just your opinion. You will need to look
for supporting clues from credible sources for each judgement that you make.
5. Draft your essay.
Produce a first draft of your essay.
At this stage the best course of action is to just write.
Once you have something down on paper it is much easier to restructure it and flesh out
areas that are not as strong as others.
6. Review, revise & rewrite.
Once you have completed a first draft you must read over your work and make any
necessary changes.
You should be prepared to rewrite your essay a couple of times to get it just right.
• Prepared by –
• Bernardita E. Brillon
• RN, RM ,MAN, Ph.D.
• NCM 119- Nursing Management