Planners Guide

Planning Process

Planning Committee

Establish a planning team based on the area of focus or concern you want to address in your activity. UAMS encourages course directors to incorporate planning by the healthcare team for the healthcare team to produce interprofessional education.

Identify Target Audience

Our educational activities are designed to span the needs of a variety of healthcare professionals. Past activities have included information for nurses, pharmacists, physicians, social workers, dietitians, long- term care providers, lawyers, as well as many more. Our main programs are designed for health care professionals whose work crosses the continuum of primary, specialty, and tertiary care. These activities draw participants from local, regional, national and international geographic areas.

Needs Assessment & Documentation – Examples of Documentation, Gap and Needs Worksheet (from current application)

Identify the problems or issues that are causing gaps in the target participant’s knowledge, competence, or performance.  You will need to provide documentation that proves this gap.

Practice Gaps

The practice gap should explain what the practice-based problem or issue you identified for the target audience.  Practice Gaps should be written in terms of what the audience do not know and/or are unable or fail to do according to the latest evidence.

Educational Need

Identify why the practice gap exists (need).  The educational need should be written in terms of what the audience does not know (knowledge), why they do not or cannot apply what they know (competence) or why they do not utilize known strategies that are consistent with current guidelines or evidence-based research (performance).

Learning Objectives – Verbs for Learning Objectives

What should a participant be able to demonstrate in terms of new knowledge, competence, or performance after the activity?  Objectives should be written in measurable terms and terms such as understand, know, and learn should be avoided.