How Implementing a Digital Competency Management System Reduced Nurse Training Cost and Improved NPD Practitioner Satisfaction in a Pediatric Hospital

Abstract

Healthcare organizations must have high-quality nursing staff to deliver optimal patient care. Educators and managers evaluate nurses by their performance through nursing competencies, or “knowledge, skills, [and] abilities” (KSA) (American Nurses Association, 2015, p. 86). Traditional competency evaluations and manual tracking posed a problem within one pediatric hospital. Leaders did not have a transparent way to see the knowledge and skills of their nursing staff. This resulted in increased organizational costs due to retraining and increased workload and job dissatisfaction among educators. The purpose of this quality improvement (QI) project was to evaluate how implementing a digital competency management system (CMS) affected nurse training costs and assess nursing professional development (NPD) practitioners’ satisfaction after the digital CMS conversion. Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was used to guide the QI project. The student conducted a cost analysis and measured nurse training cost prior to and after implementing a digital competency management system. The student also administered pre- and post-survey evaluations to determine NPD practitioners’ satisfaction before and after digital implementation. Retrospective data of training costs were collected prior to implementing the CMS. A Wilcoxon signed rank test compared the medians to examine the pre and post survey results of NPD practitioners’ satisfaction scores. The quality improvement project demonstrated that a digital CMS reduced nurse training costs by more than a half a million dollars and increased NPD practitioners’ satisfaction.