The impact of a continuing training program on the perceived improvement in quality of health care delivered by health care professionals

- The satisfaction of health care professionals with training programs is related to a perceived improvement in patient care.
- Training modality plays an important role in the satisfaction of the participants and the application of the educational content.
- 'Learning by doing' is a good system for training health care professionals as it results in a perceived improvement of quality of care.

There is abundant scientific literature concerning factors that affect patients' perceptions of the quality of health care. However, there are few published works that consider the opinions of health care professionals. This article aims to conjointly analyse two organisational strategies that determine professional health care practice: continuous training and quality of care. The objective is to examine the opinions of physicians and nurses on the improvement of the quality of care after a 'learning by doing' program. An evaluation method was designed that integrates the main variables that intervene in quality of care. An online questionnaire was utilised for collecting opinions on the effects of the training program. A total of 184 nurses and 180 other medical professionals participated in the program and all of them were asked to complete the questionnaire. A descriptive, and inferential statistical analysis was undertaken and results showed that there is a direct relationship between perceptions about: satisfaction, professional competence, training modality, optimisation of health resources and quality of care.