¶ … users of your curriculum? Medical Providers are the primary target user group of the Fundamentals of Critical Care curriculum. What are their needs? Medical Providers need to continue applying relevant research to critical care practice. Ongoing support and continuing education are essential for effective, reliable, and evidence-based quality of care. Medical Providers need to make "sound and rapid clinical judgments" while under pressure and also need to "recognize and deal with the ethical issues inherent" in a critical care environment (WHO European Strategy for Continuing Education for Nurses and Midwives, 2003). Therefore, primary needs include measurably improving quality of care based on patient outcomes, and improving perceived quality of care measured by both staff and patient self-reports.

How will evaluation results be used? Global rating forms, self-assessment forms, essays on the respondent's experience, written or computer-interactive tests, oral examinations, questionnaires, individual interviews, group interviews or discussions, direct observation, and performance audits are all effective types of evaluations that can yield credible, meaningful, valid, and applicable results (Lipsett & Kern, n.d.) Evaluation results will be used to inform future curriculum developers and to make improvements to future curricula.

What resources are available for evaluation, in terms of time, personnel, equipment, facilities, funds, and existing data? Global rating forms...

Resources available for direct observation and audits will come from volunteer personnel who can offer time, using equipment and facilities that are already available. Funds will come from the curriculum development administrative board.
Identify up to three critical evaluation questions. Are they congruent with the objectives of your curriculum?

1. Does the curriculum result in a statistically significant improvement in understanding the ethical policies ascribed to by the organization?

2. Does the curriculum result in a statistically significant reduction in medical errors in critical care environments?

3. Does the curriculum result in a statistically significant improvement in perceived quality of care outcomes, evaluated using specific measures including both patient- and staff-driven surveys?

These three evaluation questions are congruent with the core objectives of the curriculum, which seeks to improve overall quality of care by improving understanding of the critical care environment.

Do either of the objectives or the evaluation questions need to be changed?

Neither the objectives nor the evaluation questions need to be changed because they reflect the objectives of the curriculum.

What evaluation method would be a good fit for your project? Why?

Although most of…