Like most hospital units, neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) are multidisciplinary and team-based. As a result, providing optimal nutritional care to premature infants involves using the knowledge and skills of several types of professionals. Using traditional needs assessment methodologies to effectively understand the educational needs…

Introduction: Our goal was to identify the clinical questions that health care professionals have at the point of care and explore whether these questions could be used to drive a needs assessment for continuing education programs. Methods: We gathered questions from 28 clinicians; 11 were directly observed for approximately 5 days per person,…

Introduction: Immigrant physicians are a valued resource for physician workforces in many countries. Few studies have explored the education and training needs of immigrant physicians and ways to facilitate their integration into the health care system in which they work. Using an educational program developed for immigrant civilian physicians…

Introduction: Today there are significant challenges to public health, and effective responses to them will require complex approaches and strategies implemented by a qualified workforce. An adequately prepared workforce requires long-term development; however, local health departments have limited financial and staff resources. Schools and…

Introduction: The inherited hemoglobin disorders constitute a major public health problem. Facilitators (experienced hemoglobin counselors) were trained to deliver knowledge and skills to "frontline" practitioners to enable them to support parents during antenatal screening via a cascade (train-the-trainer) model. Objectives of…

Introduction: There is movement of physicians internationally. In some cases, physicians are recruited from low-income countries to wealthier countries like Canada to provide medical services in underresourced communities. This needs assessment examined the clinical medicine learning challenges faced by international medical graduates (IMGs) from…

An outcomes-based education (OBE) approach was desired for the CS2day initiative, and the size and scope of the initiative compelled a consistent and cohesive framework in order to apply such an approach. A series of competency statements were developed to provide that framework. The competency statements were based on current clinical guidelines,…

Introduction: Medical education topics might be locally prioritized using public health data on health outcomes and risk factors unrelated to quality of care. Methods: The Missouri Information for Community Assessment (MICA) supplied preventable hospitalization rates (PHRs) for asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), diabetes, heart…

From a random sample of 650 dentists in 6 states, 357 responses indicated preference for 1-day, Friday or Saturday programs, and lecture more than participation or demonstration. Most would like to learn more specialty and new techniques. Dentists averaged 50 hours of continuing education per year. (SK)

Reviews advantages and disadvantages of questionnaires for continuing-education needs-assessment. Outlines considerations for effective questionnaire design--understanding the learning context and how learning and change occur in medical practice--as well as practical strategies for instrument development. (SK)

Usable responses from 469 of 1,600 members of the Alliance for Continuing Medical Education revealed an inverse relationship between types of evaluation measures used (e.g., physician satisfaction with programs) and types in which professionals would like to gain new skills (physician performance and patient health outcomes). Barriers to…

Continuing medical education providers at the University of Toronto use focus group data in program planning. Their focus group interviews reveal the importance of (1) more information about audience learning needs; (2) relevant handouts and syllabi; and (3) active learning. (SK)

A study determined the learning needs of office oncology nurses (n=290)as a critical first step in planning education programs. Participants ranked cancer-care topics similarly, regardless of age, background, or experience. The highest-ranked needs were clustered in the areas of cancer nursing practice, major cancers, and cancer treatment.…

A discrepancy model defines what successful continuing medical education is and what it should be. Then data are collected and analyzed to describe the nature and scope of the discrepancy. This approach to educational needs assessment uses an outcomes focus to plan more effective continuing-education programs. (SK)

Focus groups provide a broader range of qualitative information useful in needs assessment and continuing education program planning. One disadvantage is a group not representative of the target audience. The effectiveness of focus groups is enhanced by combining them with quantitative methods. (SK)