London Learning Forum

Analysis of surveyors’ research skills by designing a self-assessment questionnaireAuthors: Reyes-Alcázar V., Sotillos-González B., Torres-Olivera A.

(1). The Research Potential among interviewees was seen to be highly variable with a mean score of 8.5 and an interquartile range of 13.32.

(2). Specifically the Research Capability dimension (calculated on a scale of 10) disclosed a mean score of 6.19 (± 3.37). The three aspects of such dimension in which the largest number of professionals responded affirmatively are: information searching through the Internet (100%); writing up contents for a congress to be held in their mother tongue (90.3%); data collection and analysis (80.6%). Meanwhile, those aspects that need strengthening refer to article writing (48.4%) and oral expression in foreign languages (38.7%).

(3). 7 out of 10 documental resources and bibliogra-phy management tools in the questionnaire had been used by 30% of the interviewees. A highlight here was Pubmed, used by 64.5% of the subjects of the study.

(4). Finally, with regard to Research Activity, contribu-tions to congresses held in the home country (90.3%) far outnumbered those to foreign congresses (41.9%).

Summary of results

(1). The use of a self-assessment questionnaire on research skills in surveyors from an organisation aimed at enhancing healthcare quality helps profes-sionals to identify improvement areas, which, in this case, were those referring to acquiring knowledge and skills for the various stages of the research process.

(2). Applying the self-assessment questionnaire helped the interviewee surveyors to reflect on the significance of research in organisations devoted to healthcare quality and accreditation programmes.

(3). The application of the self-assessment question-naire enabled people with a high research potential to be identified in different departments throughout the organisation.

(4). The study was a useful way of shaping the design of the organisation’s research strategy for the coming years.

(5). As a general conclusion, organizations devoted to accreditation generate lot of valuable knowledge, and what is needed is a scheduled strategy for processing all that information and transforming it into researcha-ble questions, managing surveyors’ research skills.

Conclusions and Recommendations

Background or context

This study has been carried out between November 2008 and February 2009 at the Andalusian Agency for Healthcare Quality (Spain), an institution belonging to the regional public health system that covers a population of over 8 millions inhabitants, with more than 1.500 primary care centres, 34 hospitals and over 82.000 healthcare professionals. The mission of Agency is to promote exce-llence in the delivery of health services to the people of Andalusia by guaranteeing quality and continuous improvement. Since 2003, the Agency is developing its work in the field of accreditation, running several accreditation programs besides a Patient Safety Observatory. These initiati-ves are a unique opportunity to make progress towards research-based policies, in terms of knowledge creation, sharing, organization and manage-ment.

The study herein presented explores two dimensions of research in surveyor staff: a) research capability and b) research activity. Research capability can be divided into two levels: research-related functions (study design, literature review, critical reading, collecting data, writing reports, presenting results, etc.) and proficiency with document resources and bibliography management tools. The second dimension explores research activity through questions about: post-graduate and post-doctorate training, attendance of congresses and participation in inter-national projects, responsibilities such as principal investigator, publi-cation of articles or other materials.

Understanding research on healthcare quality as a critical source of evidence, the objective is to assess the research potential of surveyors from an organisa-tion geared to boosting healthcare quali-ty -Andalusian Agency for Healthcare Quality (Spain)-, by means of a self-assessment tool on research skills which contains specific questions dealing with research capability and activity.

Objectives

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