Introduction

It is measure of employee skill, knowledge and the usage of all in the professional domain. An employee may have been trained thru various training programs both internally or externally but its actual usage is of utmost importance.

To some people, the word Competence may be synonymous with skills. To others, a broader meaning of competence would be that competence = skills + knowledge + behaviors. The need to acquire education, skills, and an ability to perform professional behavior are the requirements of a competent employee. More sophisticated definitions of competence or competency would add two more dimensions:

• The 'level' at which a person may be required to work 'competently', and
• The context in which a competence is being used.

Activities in Competence Management System

A typical sequence of activities to use a competence management is:

• Identify all things that need to be done by people in the organization in order to make a list of required competences and review the competences currently available
• Use the strategy of the organization to define the competences needed in order to implement the strategy
• In the cases of both 1 and 2, perform a 'gap analysis' to identify the competences currently available to the organization and the competences it actually needs
• Use the results of the gap analysis to identify the competence development needed if the organization is to have the competences it needs.

Competency Management

The laboratory encompasses an invaluable part of the total health care provided to patients. Competency assessment is one method by which you can verify that the employees are competent to perform laboratory testing and report accurate and timely results.

To derive the greatest benefit from the inclusion of competency assessment in the laboratory, you must be sure that you are addressing areas where your efforts can be best utilized to optimize patient care. To be competent, an employee must know how to perform a test, must have the ability to perform the test, must be able to perform the test properly without supervision, and know when there is a problem with the test that must be solved.

In some cases, competency assessment protocols may show areas of competence but hides incompetence. For example, challenges of low-complexity tasks (such as reading the technical procedure manual) are inferior to challenges that measure understanding and execution of a protocol, and poorly designed competency challenges will probably not detect substandard laboratory performance. As you address competency assessment in your laboratories, you must understand that when done properly, competency assessment will reward your organizations and assist you in providing the best possible care to your patients.

The Competency Management Paradigm in Laboratories Includes

• Laboratory management shall have procedures to evaluate the competence of all technical staff through periodic performance.
• Competency assessment must be documented for all individuals, including healthcare providers performing testing at the point of care, staff engaged in the performance of supportive tasks such as data entry, accessioning and reporting, as well as supervisory and management staff.
• Laboratory management shall have written procedures for performing and documenting competency assessment for all staff.
• The competency of staff shall be evaluated for all tasks for which they are responsible at least half yearly during the first year the individual tests patient specimens and thereafter annually unless test methodology or instrumentation changes, in which case, prior to reporting patient test results, the individual's performance must be reevaluated to include the use of the new test methodology or instrumentation.

• A competence management system is able to track the competence requirements of the organization, and identify any remaining gaps which are filled thru Employee Training Program.
• Use the results of the gap analysis to identify the competence development needed if the organization is to have the competences it needs.
• A competence management system is able to track the competence requirements of the organization, and identify any remaining gaps which are filled thru Employee Training Program.

 

• Procedures to evaluate employee competence shall include, but are not limited to:
  • Direct observation of the employees performance of duties by supervisory staff;
  • Observation for compliance with safety protocols;
  • Periodic review of work product for compliance with standard operating procedures and applicable workload limits;
  • Monitoring the recording and reporting of test results;
  • Assessment of test performance through testing of previously analyzed specimens, internal blind or external proficiency testing samples;
  • Assessment of problem-solving skills.

This Competency Management Module Will Include

• Record Employee Competency
• Plan Competency programs
• Plan Competency parameters
• Employee Competency history
• Evaluator Feedback
• Plan Employee performance improvement plans

The System Objectives are to

• Ensure that the employee is in tune with changing business requirement scenarios
• Ensure that the employees are in tune with changing technology procurements
• Ensure that employees are in compliance with job requirements
• Measure the employee progress
• Do the gap analysis and reassign programs and jobs responsibilities
• Minimize the risk of external non-compliance
• Audit and inspection readiness
• Provide Audit trail history
• Provide Security
• To maintain confidentiality and transparency
• To provide guidance to appraisal team for employee appraisal

System Flow Diagram

The best way to understand competency management is to look at some examples of flowcharts.