The Impact of Regular Staff Training on the Quality of Patient Services

This article discusses the impact of regular staff training on the quality of patient services in mental healthcare. It includes a SWOT analysis of staff training, a new process of intervention, a PDSA cycle, and recommendations for training healthcare staffs. The article emphasizes the importance of communication skills, interpersonal skills, and cultural sensitivity in mental healthcare.

Running head: HEALTHCARE ADMINISTRATION
The Impact of Regular Staff Training on the Quality of Patient Services
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Key Terms Used
Psychology, Skills, Training, Mental Health Professionals, Professional Development,
Communication, General Practitioners, Nurses, Multidisciplinary Team

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Introduction
Every year at least 50% o the people in the United States suffer from mental disorder
(Weaver, Dy & Rosen, 2014). The recent advancement in the number of diagnoses available
in the American Psychiatric Association (2013) has contributed to more than 75 million
additional people requiring treatment in the next 5 years. However, only one third of the
people suffering from the mental health complications in the US get access to the specialist
mental health staffs and thus generating a huge need for psychologically-informed practice
across the mental healthcare system and creates a burden on a wide range of mental
healthcare professionals to develop the required skills (Visser et al., 2014).
Important techniques for the psychologically informed practice are diverse and
recommendations to improve the process of care mainly involve improvement of the
communicational skills, interpersonal interactions and cultural sensitivity. In additional to
these requirements, the exponentially expanding healthcare system is also creates an urgent
requirement of evidence-based practice among the healthcare professionals (Reeves et al.,
2013). Garzonis et al. (2015) is of the opinion that proper education and exposure to the
recent advancement in the domain of metal health will help the healthcare professionals to
skillfully adopt the concept of the evidence-based practice in mental healthcare and thereby
helping to improve the overall quality of care and patient outcome.
The following assignment is based on analysis of the current process of staffs skills
and their training needs in the X- mental health organization in US and recommendation of
the new interventions based on the PDSA framework and SWOT analysis. The required
development of plan for staffs training will help to analyze the overall impact on the
improved patient’s outcome. At the end, the assignment provide a brief reflection from the

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author’s point of view in the domain of importance of staffs training for gaining improved
mental health outcomes among the patients.
SWOT analysis of the staffs training
Strength of staff training
The main strength of staff training for the overall improvement of the quality of the
procured mental health care in X-mental health organization in US is increase in the number
of highly educated staffs which help in the observance of the evidence based practice in
mental health care. Other strength of the staff training include good relationship between the
staff members generated during the course of training and renovation of the certain facilities
which are highlighted by the trainee staffs during training session. The improvement of the
certain facilities as per the requirement or the feedbacks given by the trainee staffs helped to
improvement of the care facility as well (Terzic-Supic et al., 2015).
Weakness of staff training
The main weakness of the staff training include lack of proper funding and lack of
proper electrical equipments. The process of staff training demands certain amount of
funding along with proper availability of the resources in order to execute the training process
in a proper manner. For example, training of the proper communicational skills and
interpersonal training demands a trained professional for the execution of the overall process
along with the presence of equipments like overhead projectors and audio-visual clips to
procure the training sessions (Terzic-Supic et al., 2015). Availability of funding and the
proper resources will hamper the quality of training. Other weakness of the staff training
includes lack of motivation among the employees. The staffs training are mainly executed
after the duty hours and this might induce lack of staff motivation due to over work or over
exhaustion leading to decrease in the level of patient satisfaction (Terzic-Supic et al., 2015).

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Opportunities of staff training
The main opportunities of staff training includes increase in the team bonding among
the healthcare staffs which will in turn help to improve the overall process of patient care
during the rush hours in the hospital. Other opportunities, which are associated with the
medical staffs training in the mental healthcare hospital, include participation in the
international projects, which will help to increase the overall exposure of the staff’s members
(Terzic-Supic et al., 2015). Support from the local community and NGOs in staff training can
also be regarded as another opportunity this is because it helps to generate finding towards
making renovation in the process of care procurement (Terzic-Supic et al., 2015).
Threats of staff training
The main threats of staff training include lack of effective gate-keeper function in the
primary module of healthcare (Terzic-Supic et al., 2015). According to Ruotsalainen et al.
(2015), training plus duty time, increase the level of burnout among the mental health
professionals. Burnout is defined a process of persistent negative yet work-related state of
mind among the normal individuals which is characterized by exhaustion, distress and sense
of decreased effectiveness in work. All this cumulates into lack of proper motivation in work
along with dysfunctional attitudes and behaviors. This psychological attitude creates work-
related mistakes leading to drop in overall quality of care and decreased patient health-related
outcomes.

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Problems and concerns
Problems and concerns of the current process in the mental health care (x-mental
health care organization)
The current problems and concerns of the mental health care professionals in the X-
mental healthcare organization is lack of effective communication skills, intrapersonal skills
and cultural sensitivity. According to Norouzinia et al. (2016), communication is multi-
dimensional phenomenon and is a dynamic process which is inherently related to the
environment in which an individual experiences are shared. Effective communication and
right intrapersonal skills is essential in the domain of mental healthcare in order to improve
nurse patient relation-ships and thereby improving the treatment outcomes. Moreover,
effective communication and proper intrapersonal skills as executed by the nursing
processionals helps to decrease patients’ anxiety, guilt, pain and disease symptoms, which
further aids to improved mental outcomes. Moreover, X-mental health hospital also lacks in
the domain of cultural sensory especially while handling the indigenous group of population.
According to Betancourt et al, (2016), racial and ethnic disparities are well-described in the
healthcare sectors of the U.S. The domain of cultural competence has evolved as one of the
effective strategy to address this alarming rate of disparity. Lack of proper awareness in
cultural sensitivity among the mental health-nursing professionals, lead to the generation of
high rate of mental health disparity. This disparity is extremely pronounced in the domain of
indigenous group of population. Betancourt et al, (2016) stated that lack of cultural
sensitivity creates a gap in knowledge in handling patients from different cultural background
this in turn decrease the overall patients outcomes.

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Lack of effective
communication skills
Lack of effective
intrapersonal skills
Lack of culture sensitive
health care professionals
Decreases patient to nurse relationship
Increase in the health inequality among the mental health patients
Decrease in the
overall health
outcomes
HEALTHCARE ADMINISTRATION
Flow chart
Source: Created by author
New process of intervention
The new process of intervention will mainly encompass effective training of the
health care professionals in the domain of effective communicational skills and intrapersonal
skills along with proper education in the domain of the cultural sensitivity. The main target of
the overalls staff training process will be the mental health-nursing professionals. This is
because, Lin et al. (2013) have rightly stated that the nursing professionals spent majority of
their time with the patients. Thus, it is the duty of the nursing professionals to interact
effectively with the patients in order to extract out their exact mental health concerns and
thereby helping the mental health physicians to draft out interventions accordingly. The other
interventions will mainly deal with the proper training of the nursing professionals in cultural
sensitivity. This will be done via giving proper education in the concerns, the way of

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approach associated with the individuals from different community, and this will in turn will
help to frame culturally effective interventions to treat the mental health complications of the
indigenous group of populations (Barrera et al., 2013).
Source: Created by author
Feedback
Group discussion
Intrapersonal skill
training
Feedback
Group discussion
Effective
communication
skill training
Education about different
cultures and their values via
group discussion
Training in cultural
sensitivity

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PDSA cycle
Objective: to test the appropriateness of the interventions taken for improving the staff
training in mental health care.
Plan
I plan to conduct a survey involving the patients and their families to evaluate any
deterioration or progress brought about in the patients after being admitted in the institutions.
Questions & Proposed outcome
 Will there be a 25 % reduction of the medical errors especially while dealing with
medicines or identification of the patients?
 Will there be less occurrence of the sentinel events such as the acts of violence or
agitation among the patients.
 Can the health care staffs communicate efficiently within themselves or the patients;
family?
Plan for collecting the data
25 patients will be selected for the survey followed by 25 registered nurses. A questionnaire
will be containing a list of questions that would be helpful in obtaining the feedback.
Steps to execute
We will be preparing a questionnaire consisting of 10 open-ended questions and a checklist
for marking the standards.
Do

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A one-on-on-one interview can be conducted with each of the patients accompanied by
family members.
Data collection:
 All the data was collected electronically and the checklist was ticked against each
response.
 It was found that in most of the cases the caregivers failed to communicate with the
caregivers. According to some family member “we did not even get to know about
any mishap occurring and hence always have to visit the hospital every now and then
to check our patient.”
 Some of the mental patients showed dissatisfaction when asked about their caregivers.
 Most of the staffs have shown cultural sensitivity while referring to each of the
patients.
Study
Prediction: we thought that the occurrence of violence and agitation would decrease.
Results: There were reports of aggressive behavior by the clients, which means the health
care staffs were unable to manage them.
Prediction: We predicted that most of the patients would not be able to answer the questions.
Results: they were successful in filling up the checklist.
Prediction: There would be good nurse patient rapport
Results: Many of the nurses showed concerns while approaching the psychotic patients due to
mental stigma or fear of being harmed.

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Act
It can be concluded from the cycle that there was lack of communication skills among the
nurses, in many cases the nurses cannot comprehend the needs of the patients, and often used
restraints while making them consume food. The family member present during the interview
also expressed dissatisfaction while discussing about communication skills.
Planning for the next cycle
It has to be noted from the PDSA cycle that communication skills, interpersonal skills and the
cultural sensitiveness are to be enhanced for a safe care delivery. A robust training is required
or improving the communication skills. Proper peer coaching and expert coaching can be
helpful. Clinical competency training and peer presentations given by the qualified
professionals should be my next phase of training.
Recommendations
Training develops a work force that is competent enough in delivering a person –
centered care, and to ensure that the needs of the mental health patients are met. Well-trained
staffs can develop the satisfaction, morale and motivate the workforce that can improve the
retention of the staffs, increases the quality of care, the ward efficiency and the productivity
(Lyon et al., 2011). Investing in training of the staffs can be helpful in meeting the
requirements of the care quality commission. Furthermore, it has also been notices that a will-
trained workforce is proportional to less medication errors, lower rate of readmissions and
improved mental health conditions in the patient (Garzonis et al., 2012). All these reasons
provides the rationale for choosing the training of the health workforce to be important in
health care. With time, more people are being presented with health care problems and
mental health has become a matter of all the health care professionals that require a cross-

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disciplinary approach (Gongora-Ortega et al., 2013). Although there are several ways to
define the concept of skills and training, training means the systematic development of the
knowledge, attitudes, behavior patterns and the skills (Department of Health. 2013).
Already it has been stated that the X- mental health organization lacked proper
communication skills among the health care staffs. Jansink et al., (2013), has stated that the
group training can be useful in teaching the communication skills to the nurses, hospitals and
the general practitioners and the hospital doctors. Shirazi et al., (2013), have stated that group
training can also help in improving the diagnostic skills and supervision skills in the health
care staffs. Individual or one-on –one training should be done in order to the provide training
regarding specific skills, such as training to mental car staffs for dealing with patients
particularly those suffering from delirium or psyco-sexual disorders (Jansink et al., 2013).
Whereas those staffs in charge of the pediatric patients should be trained in a different way.
According to Jansink et al., (2013), individual training can be helpful in short-term
enhancement of the skills, greater self-efficacy among the staffs and passion for work. Web
enabled video training can be done to allow a synchronous communication between the
persons who are not present in the single physical space.
Further recommendations includes minimization of the contradictions in practice by
provision of a clear guidance for practice, professional standards and learning outcomes
(Shirazi et al., 2013). The training should include individual feedback, structured learning and
regular training. Work should be allocated for the staffs that is appropriate to their level of the
skills in order to prevent medical errors. Supervisors should be approachable to the trainees.
Cultural sensitiveness can be improved by sharing and understanding the culture of
the staff nurses and innovative ideas such as celebration of the special days of each culture or

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arranging cuisines from different culture may help in the development of cultural assimilation
(Amerson 2012).
Special training programs for the health care staffs can cause cost burden and hence
cost effective strategies should be taken. In case of short term training cost effective
information handouts can be given to the staffs containing the information regarding the
training (Nilsen 2011). Training can be provided by the senior nurse of that organization
instead of hiring people from outside.
Conclusion
Proper work force in health care, especially in mental health care is not only important for the
health and the wellbeing of the patient, but is also important for enhancing the professional
standards of the health care professionals and the reputation of the health care organization.
In order to develop a competent work force, extensive training of the health care staffs are
required. Well-trained staffs are confident and are better prepared for providing support to the
patients and their families. It can be said that proper group training, clinical competency
training and use of the digital equipment can be helpful in providing education regarding the
development of the interpersonal, communication skills and cultural sensitivity. A proper
plan to do cycle can be effective in measuring the effectiveness of our interventions.

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