Perceived value and priorities for nursing facility staff training from consultant pharmacists

Abstract

Objective: Identify areas of key interest for training among nursing facility team members.

Design: Cross-sectional; nursing facility team

Setting: Random phone survey of nursing facility health care team

Participants: 540 nursing facility team members (practicing in nursing facilities, interacting with > or = 1 consultant pharmacist): 120 medical directors, 210 directors of nursing, and 210 administrators.

Intervention: Directors of nursing, medical directors, and administrators were asked to rate their interest in consultant pharmacist's provision of 15 training topics.

Main outcome measure: Participants from each group were asked to select the top three training materials they are most interested in having their consultant pharmacist provide.

Results: The top seven selections for training materials were ranked in the top seven for all groups, (medical directors, directors of nursing, administrators, and teams combined) and in particular, the top four were consistently selected by 25% or more of each group.

Conclusions: Previous section survey results indicate that facility staff rate consultant pharmacist performance in the area of training as low. Consultant pharmacists should consider selecting one of the top seven and in particular the top four topics as possible training materials within their facilities.