The healthcare landscape is evolving, and educational technology has been introduced to promote nursing education. Nurse educators have the role of ensuring that educational technology is adopted based on existing needs within an organization and is aligned with the mission of an organization, thus enhancing the ultimate nursing process and improving the performance of the staff members. Eventually, educational technology aims to improve patient outcomes (Gause et al., 2022). Accordingly, this assessment comprises a comprehensive needs assessment to evaluate the educational technology and how it affects nursing education in a given health setting. Such a needs assessment will allow nurse educators to ascertain how new educational technology, upgrades to existing technology, and changes in the current technology will aid in closing performance gaps and ultimately improving patient outcomes. Therefore, this evaluation contains a needs assessment of the educational technology implemented in a health situation.
Needs Assessment Results
Presently, the hospital nurses that were evaluated use educational technology through different e-learning platforms and simulation equipment. The e-learning modules are used to bolster professional growth and continued education. The simulation equipment is used to improve the skills of the staff members and encourage them to learn based on presented scenarios. The technologies are critical in fostering education among the staff members. Even so, there are still some gaps in information that hinder a practical understanding of the effectiveness of these technologies. Details on the frequency of how the technologies are used, the satisfaction of their use among the staff members, and how well they align with the organization’s objectives are still scanty. The results of this needs assessment were obtained from feedback sessions with the staff members.
Assumptions and Analysis Methodology
The description is focused on the assumption that the educational technology evaluated within the organization is employed within the broad nursing education trends. Through this lens, more insights will be obtained on the current use of educational technology aligned with the trends that influence the pedagogical approaches employed in nursing. In assessing the current state, a SWOT analysis will be used to evaluate strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats linked with the current use of educational technology.
Metrics Assessment
The metrics evaluated in the needs assessment on the use of educational technology are based on retention of knowledge and engagement levels. For an in-depth evaluation of the use of educational technology, the measures of transfer of skills to real-life clinical settings and the extent to which technology yields patient-centered care were used to assess the efficacy of educational technology in achieving the desirable outcome. Data quality was enhanced through qualitative feedback from other learners and instructors.
Comparison of Current State with Desired State
A SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis would help compare the current use of existing educational technology with the desired state (Paul, 2019). The strength of the current state is that the use of e-learning modules and simulation learning are broadly accessible. In this regard, staff members can use the needed materials that would foster the gain of knowledge and improvements of skills. Nonetheless, simulation can limit the integrating of the skills acquired in a real-life clinical setting. Simulations are just descriptions of how one should act on a given case in a real-life environment. However, circumstances in a real-life scenario may not match those of the simulation, making it challenging to apply the skills acquired. There is a chance for improvement, and there are opportunities for the health facility to improve its use of educational technology to reach the desired state.
The desired state is where simulation equipment and e-learning technologies integrate with real-life situations. At the same time, the existing technologies should increase interactivity and engagement, likely to have a profound role in hindering and preventing active learning and retention of knowledge (Pau & Hall, 2021). Besides, the hospital has a chance to ensure that educational technology aligns with the hospital’s mission of providing patient-centered care through continued learning and improvements. These opportunities will enhance interactivity and bridge the gap between theoretical knowledge obtained from educational technologies and practice (Rezayi et al., 2022). The primary threat lies in the inability to adapt to the evolving technological trends that would likely hinder and affect skill development.
Alignment with Organization Mission
The technology used within the organization does not align with the mission of patient-centered care. Skills are acquired but cannot be transferrable to real-life clinical settings. However, the proposed educational technology should align with the mission of patient-centered care and should foster continued learning. There needs to be a technology that allows the transferability of skills acquired from education to real-life settings. A climate of competent and compassionate patient-centered care is enabled through such a technological solution.
Recommendations
Implementing new educational technology is needed to align with the health facility’s mission of providing patient-centered care (Altmiller & Pepe, 2022). The organizational culture should also be shaped to promote creativity in education and improve ultimate patient outcomes. The proposed recommendations include integrating simulation with clinical practice to ensure that the skills gained can be translated into a real-life clinical situation. Such solutions would mean more skill integration and would bolster the process of knowledge retention among staff members. The result will be an improvement in nursing education as nurses can provide high-quality care to patients. At the same time, there is a need to adopt interactive elements such as simulations, virtual encounters with patients, and collaborative forums that foster practitioner engagement, subsequently enhancing knowledge retention. This solution would align with the recommendations for active learning and participatory education. Such solutions are impactful in ensuring that the organization reaches its desired state in terms of educational technology. At the same time, it cultivates a culture characterized by a situation where nurses have the needed skills and knowledge to improve patient-centered care, aligning with the organization’s mission.
Conclusion
The needs assessment conducted in this study has provided some insights into specific opportunities and gaps in nursing education. The needs identified can be fulfilled by adopting particular recommended measures. As determined from the needs assessment, the leading educational technologies adopted within the organization are simulation learning and e-learning modules. While these are critical, they have not enabled nurses to gain the knowledge acquired and majorly translate them to a real-life setting. The recommendations include using case-based simulations that align with the organization’s mission and can be translated to a real-life situation. The offers can yield transformations in nursing education and allow nurses to provide high-quality healthcare in a dynamic working environment.
References
Altmiller, G., & Pepe, L. H. (2022). Influence of technology in supporting quality and safety in nursing education. Nursing Clinics of North America, 57(4), 551-562. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cnur.2022.06.005
Gause, G., Mokgaola, I. O., & Rakhudu, M. A. (2022). Technology usage for teaching and learning in nursing education: An integrative review. Curationis, 45(1). https://doi.org/10.4102/curationis.v45i1.2261
Pau, S. S., & Hall, A. (2021). New spaces for healthcare futures studies: Connecting existing theory to deeper participatory practice. Futures, 126, 102689. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2020.102689
Paul, P. (2019). A gap analysis of teaching marketing ethics: Desired versus current state. Journal of Education for Business, 94(7), 460-470. https://doi.org/10.1080/08832323.2019.1568221
Rezayi, S., Amanollahi, A., Shahmoradi, L., Rezaei, N., Katigari, M. R., Zolfaghari, M., & Manafi, B. (2022). Effects of technology-based educational tools on nursing learning outcomes in intensive care units: A systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Medical Education, 22(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-022-03810-z
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