Core competency zeroes in on needed skills
Therapists do self-assessment before training
When therapists attend their monthly discipline meeting at DeKalb Medical Center in suburban Atlanta, they review the core competency skills needed for whichever hospital program is hosting the meeting.Because all the competencies can’t be covered in a 90-minute session, therapists in the host area have created a check-off list to help them determine which areas need to be reviewed.
Therapists rotate through 8 areas
The core competency training rotates among the eight areas of the hospital where therapy is provided. Each area is responsible for reviewing the core skills with other therapists in its discipline.Several weeks before the meeting, each therapist is asked to review a check list of core competency skills and evaluate how comfortable he or she feels with performing the skill using this scale:
1. I’ve never performed this skill.
2. It has been a long time since I’ve performed this skill.
3. I feel skilled in this area.
"We can’t really review all the skills in just an hour and a half. This way we can look at the trends and see which skills most need to be reviewed," explains Rachele Branson, OTR/L, rehab specialist and co-chair of the committee that designed the competency program.
For example, when the occupational therapists in the outpatient area trained their peers in other areas of the hospital, they targeted cognitive treatment and visual perception treatment techniques, Brownstone says.
Information such as filling out the assessment and daily documentation forms is automatically reviewed at each discipline meeting.
At DeKalb, discipline meetings occur once a month when no patients are scheduled for treatment.
Therapists who miss the discipline meeting at which the core competency training is conducted must meet individually with therapists in that program area and make up the competency training within a month.
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