Guide to Effective Staff Development in Health Care Organizations: A Systems Approach to Successful Training / Edition 1

by Patrice L. Spath

Overview

In Guide to Effective Staff Development in Health CareOrganizations, Patrice L. Spath— a national authority on healthcare training— and a stellar panel of health care experts offerhospital administrators and managers a variety of techniques thatthey can implement to provide cost-efficient staff orientation,training, and continuing education. This book acts as a field guidefor health care executives who must make informed decisions aboutwhich staff trainings and education strategies are best for theirorganizations. A comprehensive resource for health care executives,Guide to Effective Staff Development in Health Care Organizations
* Shows how to establish educational and training priorities
* Offers a model for integrating all facets of staff education andperformance evaluation
* Summarizes the most significant health care training issues
* Includes information and tips on selecting training methods
* Presents adult learning strategies
* Offers strategies for measuring the value of training

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780787958749
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	01/24/2002
Series:	J-B AHA Press , #11
Edition description:	1 ED
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	6.26(w) x 9.17(h) x 1.07(d)

About the Author

Patrice L. Spath is a partner in Brown-Spath & Associates, a health care publishing and training company based in Forest Grove, Oregon. During the past twenty years, she has presented more than 350 educational programs on quality improvement, case management, medical error reduction, and outcomes management topics. A prolific writer, she has authored or edited more than 150 journal articles. Her book, Error Reduction in Health Care: A Systems Approach to Improving Patient Safety (Jossey-Bass, 2000) won wide acclaim and was a Doody's 250 Best Books of the Year Selection.

Table of Contents

Tables, Figures, and Exhibits.

Foreword: James B. Conway.

Preface.

The Editor.

The Contributors.

Part One: The Learning Imperative.

1. Building the Context for Learning: An Executive Priority (Anthony J. DiBella).

2. An Organizational Model for Continuous Learning (Kathleen J. Heery).

3. The Learning Transformation Process ina Health Care System (Diane Boynton, Donald C. Sibery).

Part Two: Training Issues.

4. Training Challenges in Health Care Organizations(Connie E. Kuykendall, Sally Zuel).

5. Selecting Appropriate Training Methods (Brenda I. Mygrant, Mary Carole McMann).

6. Training the Adult Learner in Health CareOrganizations (Donna J. Slovensky, Pamela E. Paustian).

7. Measuring the Organizational Impact ofTraining Programs (Richard J. Wagner, Robert Weigand).

8. Making the Most of Your Training Dollar (Patrice L. Spath).

Part Three: Training Solutions: Case Studies.

9. Nurse Scrub Training Program DecreasesSurgery Costs (Christina Dempsey).

10. Web-Based Training Expands Coding Educationin a Large Health Care System (Gloryanne Bryant, Claire R. Dixon-Lee).

11. On-Target Education Program Meets TrainingNeeds of Surgical Services (Alice T. Speers, Karen L. Zaglaniczny, Christine S. Zambricki).

12. Education Collaborative Augments Staff Trainingin Northern California Hospitals (Rebecca Petersen).

Glossary: The Language of Learning.

Index.

Editorial Reviews

Reviewer: L. Pat Hoidal, RN, MPH (Creighton University)
Description: The book provides a comparison of traditional training programs to using educational efforts in a broader sense focusing on outcomes. It contains a significant number of case studies to demonstrate the broader impact focusing on outcomes can have to the overall success of the organization.
Purpose: It is designed to provide healthcare executives with an overview of staff training and education strategies to help leaders make informed decisions about program priorities. The book addresses the need of leaders to understand the impact education and training can have on achieving the organizations goals. The need for leaders to understand the value of human resource development in a service industry is paramount, but often takes a back seat to capital and new program expenditures. The author presents a strong case for the contribution that can be made by investing in staff development. The book clearly addresses both the high level rationale used by top executives and the measurement of outcomes to justify the "transformational" approach outlined in the book.
Audience: The book is aimed at healthcare executives. In my judgment, it is written for all levels of leadership in an organization from supervisors to top executives. It could be used in graduate level studies effectively. Although a number of the examples are targeted at the operating room, they are presented in such a way as to be applicable to any clinical area. The author is a known and respected writer and educator in the area of staff development for many years. Her books are widely used in practice and in teaching settings.
Features: The book covers the interrelationship of job performance, learning initiatives, and business goals in healthcare. It provides a comparison of traditional training and continuous learning systems and includes a discussion on leveraging technology. One case study demonstrates how continuous learning can realistically evolve the organization into the highly skilled process of think tanks. The book is laid out in sections such that the reader can choose to read about the theory and then move to the case studies. The index allows readers to pick and choose how they wish to move about the book without losing train of thought. The use of diagrams and pictorial models is limited, although the narrative is sufficient to articulate the idea.
Assessment: This is an easy to read book and as an experienced educator, I found the layout valuable as a textbook. It would be an easy read for a top executive to understand the salient points and find easy to understand clinical examples of how staff development could be valuable to the organization. It is one of the few books I have seen that allows the top executive to understand the theory and measure the outcome without getting bogged down in the detail. The book is interesting, timely, and well written. It is an outstanding contribution to the field of outcomes management.

Doody's Review Service

4 Stars! from Doody