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Needs Assessment
Aubrey Bush
CUR 528
05/25/2015
Dr. Justin Atwood

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Needs Assessment
In an emergency situation it is important to have someone on hand that
can respond to that situation before the EMTs arrive.

Sometimes that time

between calling the squad and their arrival can cost a victim their life,
decrease recovery chances or increase recovery time.

Thus it is vital to have

an individual trained to respond to these situations on hand.

This program

has the potential to decrease over all costs associated with worker injury or
death.

If the injured employee does not need and therefore not get as much

treatment because the response was immediate, this could negate a potential
increase in insurance premiums due to extended treatments as well as a
decrease in potential workmans compensation due to extended treatment and
time off work if the company is found to be responsible or liable for the
injury.

The proposed training based on this information is first aide

certification (this includes CPR) training for all of key members of staff.
The purpose of this program would be to decrease deaths due to injury in
the company as well as possibly decrease worker time off work due to injury.
Some injuries mend quicker if treated sooner as opposed to when they get to
the hospital or the EMTs arrive, the injured party has a better chance of
recovery and could intern require less treatment or need it for a shorter
period of time.

This potentially could reduce health care costs from workers

comp, as well as insurance premiums.

This could also reduce lawsuits due to

deaths and court costs associated with worker injury.

Depending on how much

it would cost to institute the training program. Which would include but might
not be limited to, paying employees to go thru the training, paying the
instructor or organization supplying the instructor, space to provide the
training if none is available in the company and paying for the study to be
done and to gather all the information needed.

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In order to determine if this training is necessary there are many
factors to look at. Some of those factors might already have data available
related to them. Here are some factors that would need to be addressed: How
long does it take for the squad to respond to the specific location of the
business?

How many deaths are related to a delay in treatment?

How many

deaths are related to a delay in treatment that have been within a five mile
radius around the building?

What is the occurrence of injuries that require

immediate treatment? Is the occurrence of those injuries different than those

at the business?

How many, if any, employees are already first aide

certified? What would be an effective number of employees to train, accounting

for days off and assignment to different sections of the building as well as
possible increased need? Have there been any lawsuits or other negative
occurrences due to injury or death of an employee at the company?

How much

will it cost to have the staff first aide certified? As well as any additional
questions that are brought up during the gathering of information or anything
that later comes to light.
There are many public records that will probably retain a lot of the
above required information.

This information is not likely to contain

specifics in regards to our company or building.

However those facts might be

available from the records department of the company.

search might yield many of the results as well.

A simple internet

The emergency services can be

contacted as well, and they might have specific information about response
times and characteristics that influence those times, they might have
specifics in regards to the company in addition to general information.
As stated above the emergency services can be contacted.

Information

can be gathered on the internet such as does having individuals who are first
aide certified able to respond almost immediately increase life expectancy?
general survey of employees to see if they think it is a good idea or who

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would be willing to do the training at all. If there have been any other
programs that sought out to do the same thing and their results. It would seem
a general fact finding mission would be in order to gather the required
information.

If needed there might be death records available and those

families could be discreetly and empathically contacted to see if they would

have any of the needed information.
To ascertain if the program is effective it would need to be monitored
after its inception.

If there is a statistically significant decrease in

deaths, injuries or costs due to either then the program could be seen as a
success or at least as having potential.

This would be a simple number (as

simple as statistics can be) comparison of before and after implementation. It

is my recommendation that a test should be given of all first aide certified
employees.

This would be after the certification to make sure that the course

was successful in training and instilling the needed skills.

This could take

the form of an on the spot test were they have to determine and treat the
injuries of a fellow coworker who is playing the victim.

This is a good idea

because it tests them after they are supposed to have the knowledge and the
instructor is not there to give them any hints etc., as well as potentially
making them nervous. So they could indeed perform better in this secondary
test.

It is also a good idea to see how affective they will be in an

emergency.

Even though the situation is fake, the first aid trained

individual will not know this in advance and thus the exercise can simulate a
real emergency.

Even with training there is no telling how someone will act

in an emergency and it is vital to this program that the employees being

counted on respond in an appropriate and timely fashion or there is no point.
Obviously there is a need to make sure that no harm comes to the victim in
this situation, so an appropriate scenario should be established that both
tests the certified employee and will not injure the victim employee.

It is

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also recommended that the skills be practiced for two months after the
training in all sorts of situations.

It generally takes this long for actions

to be common place and it would therefore instill the training and make it
more effective in case of a real emergency.

It does not do any good to have

certified staff if they have not used their knowledge in so long they forget
what to do or how to do it.

It will also help to ensure that even if the

staff person is nervous or unsure they are more likely to do the right thing
and do it quickly.

It will be more automatic and when in a panicked or

overloaded state a person only does what is automatic to them because there
higher brain functions do not work at that point.

It can be just as traumatic

or more so in some cases, for someone to find or have to work on an injured

person as it is for the injured person.

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Reference
Royse, D. (2011). Program Evaluation: An Introduction (5th ed.).
Retrieved from The University of Phoenix eBook Collection database.