Getting grants to conduct phlebotomy educational programs.

Getting grants to conduct phlebotomy educational programs

From needs analysis to budgeting--how to win funding for a new training course.

Although hospitals in our city already conducted phlebotomy training, they had repeatedly asked our university to develop a formal phlebotomy

educational program. We tentatively decided to go ahead five years ago. The university's medical technology and cytogenetics program would seek grant funding for this new type of instruction if a needs analysis confirmed that a broad sampling of health care providers wanted it.

We surveyed hospitals, health maintenance organizations, clinics, and physicians' offices. The results showed a great demand for phlebotomists at that time, as there is today. Respondents said they would gladly hire individuals trained in school rather than on the job.

Armed with this ammunition, I proceeded to go after funding. The first step was to devise a workable curriculum; that would give us an idea of how much money we needed to run the program.

Writing a grant proposal, or any proposal for that matter, forces you to organize ideas and project them to others. The process should not be difficult

for a laboratorian, who is used to thinking systematically. Nevertheless, self-protection, shyness, and uncertainty can combine to make you postpone this trial of mental strength. Drafting the preliminary outline of a curriculum is a way to ease into the task of writing the overall proposal.

There's another point to bear in mind when writing a grant proposal for a phlebotomy education program: Don't be stingy in the first draft--you can always trim excess words and information later. If you are too strict with yourself at the outset, you may delete some element of potential importance.

The first draft of the curriculum called for four weeks of instruction--two weeks of didactic work and two weeks of clinical rotation. Subsequent drafts expanded the curriculum to cover the growing amount of information that a phlebotomist should know (Figure I). Changes suggested by several medical technology faculty members were incorporated in the final version.

Development of the curriculum prompted us to consider a number of other aspects of the grant proposal. Since the medical technology faculty already had a heavy teaching load, who would teach the phlebotomy students? Would we have to seek funding for a phlebotomy instructor? What equipment and supplies would have to be purchased and in what quantities? Where could we purchase instructional materials for a phlebotomy educational program? How would we set up clinical rotation sites for the students?