Data-based decision making

Artifact: EDTEC 540 Performance Analysis/Instructional Plan

When I learned about performance analysis in EDTEC 540, I immediately knew of a great application. I’d recently assumed co-leadership of the patient education committee at Forbes Regional Hospital where I worked as the medical librarian. A few months of committee work demonstrated a lack of knowledge about adult education (my own and other committee members) as well as persistent problems assessing, performing, and documenting inpatient education. Using performance analysis to diagnose and recommend solutions for our patient education processes seemed a no-brainer.

People Oughta Wanna

I fell in love with the Mager book and recommend it highly to this day. His simple approach to figuring out why people are (or aren’t) behaving in a certain way made me wonder why I’d never thought of performance in that way before. It was so simplistic, and yet so elegant. My work in libraries and Continuing Medical Education (CME) committees had introduced me to several ways of doing “needs assessment,” but those almost always seemed to be about what the instructor wanted to teach, not what the learner needed to do.

I focused my analysis on inpatient diabetes education. Newly diagnosed diabetics either weren’t receiving education, or were being taught in a haphazard manner. As part of the process I interviewed managers on those units which had the highest number of new diabetics. The thing that amazed and astounded me was that no one had ever talked to these folks about what the problems were and why the education wasn’t getting done. How could that be? Such an easy and fruitful first step, and yet no one had ever tried it.

Data, Data, Everywhere

I’d never really considered the multi-factorial nature of performance problems. The analysis I performed in 540 helped me to visualize performance complexity because it required so many sources of data. In addition to my interviews, I collected data from a prior chart audit, I did a literature review for best practices, performed a brief walk-through on an inpatient unit, and reviewed existing forms. Having to outline optimal and actual practice and then pinpoint reasons for the gap was an excellent introduction to using data to build solutions.

Another aha moment came when having to place each performance barrier into a “bucket” such as Skills/Knowledge; Environment; Motivation; or Organizational Support. This allowed our committee to decide which barriers could be quickly addressed with an environmental fix or a job aid, versus those which would require larger organizational change (or even those which were likely to never change).

On a professional level, my 540 performance analysis turned out to be a big hit. I was so enamored of and impressed by performance analysis that I wrote a newsletter article about my project, turned it into a scientific poster which I presented at a 2005 annual meeting (and won a research award), and then turned it into a 2008 invited article in a peer-reviewed library journal. I've become an evangelist for performance analysis!

 

Mager, R. F., & Pipe, P. (1997). Analyzing performance problems: Or you really oughta wanna. Atlanta, GA: Center for Effective Performance.