ePortfolio 2009 — KC 2009 — LNC 2009 Innovation, Creativity and Accountability Learning Forum London, 22-24 June 2009

1. London Learning Forum
Analysis of surveyors’ research
skills by designing a
self-assessment questionnaire
Background or context
Authors: Reyes-Alcázar V., Sotillos-González B., Torres-Olivera A.
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 excellence 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 initiatives are a unique opportunity to make progress towards research-based
policies, in terms of knowledge creation, sharing, organization and management.
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 postdoctorate training, attendance of congresses and participation in international projects, responsibilities such as principal investigator, publication of articles or other materials.
Summary of results
(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 bibliography 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.
Objectives
Agencia de Calidad Sanitaria de Andalucía
Andalusian Agency for Healthcare Quality
Understanding research on healthcare
quality as a critical source of evidence,
the objective is to assess the research
potential of surveyors from an organisation geared to boosting healthcare quality -Andalusian Agency for Healthcare
Quality (Spain)-, by means of a selfassessment tool on research skills which
contains specific questions dealing with
research capability and activity.
Conclusions and Recommendations
(1). The use of a self-assessment questionnaire on
research skills in surveyors from an organisation
aimed at enhancing healthcare quality helps professionals 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.
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Learning
Europe
EUROPORTFOLIO
(3). The application of the self-assessment questionnaire enabled people with a high research potential to
be identified in different departments throughout the
organisation.
EI EL
Building
(4). Finally, with regard to Research Activity, contributions to congresses held in the home country (90.3%)
far outnumbered those to foreign congresses (41.9%).
(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 researchable questions, managing surveyors’ research skills.
www.juntadeandalucia.es/agenciadecalidadsanitaria