Instructions

Review the scenario provided and develop a training and development plan to be submitted to the chief financial officer (CFO).

Scenario

Susan is the newly hired director of HIM at a rural 250-bed hospital. She was hired when the previous HIM director retired. During her interview, Susan was identified as being highly qualified and very enthusiastic about the HIM profession. Susan holds an RHIA credential and is working on her masters degree in organizational leadership. The previous director had been in place for over 25 years and her last two annual evaluations noted that she was not keeping pace with HIM industry standards. The HIM department has the following employees:

Two transcriptionists with no credentials

Two release-of-information (ROI) coordinators, one Registered Health Information Technician (RHIT) and one trained on the job

Five coders, of which two hold RHIT credentials, two with the Certified Coding Specialist (CCS) credential only, and one with the Certified Coding Associate (CCA) credential only

One HIM supervisor who is RHIT-eligible, newly hired, with less than a year of management experience

Four document imaging specialists with no credentials

Two chart completion clerks with no credential

One data quality specialist which is an open position, RHIT credential required

Susan has been directed by her boss, the CFO, to plan for specific positions in the department to be converted to remote positions because the hospital needs space to increase cardiac services. In the four months Susan has been leading the department, she has realized that there are serious knowledge gaps for many of the employees and many of them are not meeting monthly productivity or quality performance standards. Susan knows that there is a real risk to sending many of these individuals home to work because of the identified performance issues. She has decided a training and development plan will be necessary to prepare the majority of the workforce to work remotely.

Assumptions

It is evident that the HIM employees are in need of training and development, but there is no departmental education plan in place and no record of any formal training or development programs offered in the last two years.

There are acceptable productivity and quality performance standards in place for all of the positions, including the open position.

There are no financial resources in the current budget to cover training and development activities, but the CFO indicated that he could make resources available on a limited basis.

There is no education department but the HR department is able to assist with training needs.

The CFO told Susan that she has six months to transition the employees to work remotely.

The open data quality specialist position is a line item on the HIM budget that needs to be filled within the next month or the position is in jeopardy of being eliminated in the next fiscal years budget process.

Deliverables (complete Deliverables 1-3a only).

In a Word document respond to the following:

1. In preparation to create a method for assessing the needs and knowledge gaps for all HIM employees, including management positions, first, explain how will you assess these? You do not need to create an assessment instrument. Instead, explain how you will assess for any needs and knowledge gaps for all HIM employees.

2. A plan for identifying the sensory learning styles of the HIM department employees. How can you best determine employee learning styles?

3. Develop a six-month training and development program for each of the employee categories listed previously. The plan should consist of the following:

a. Identify at least two training topics that all employees have in common and a different training model to use for each of the two training topics. [Use the training and development template on pg. 194 to respond to Deliverable 3.]