Assignment

Overview

• This assessment asks you to create a detailed implementation plan for an economic initiative.

As a master's-level health care practitioner you may be expected to create budget and implementation plans to ensure that economic opportunities for the organization are rolled out successfully and can be sustained over multiple years. Additionally, it is important to be able to envision how an economic initiative could be used for different contexts and purposes to keep the investment a viable and positive asset to your organization or care setting.

Note: Complete the assessments in this course in the order in which they are presented.

By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and assessment criteria:

• Competency 1: Competency 1: Analyze the effects of financial and economic factors (such as cost-benefit, supply and demand, return on investment, and risks) in a health care system on patient care, services offered, and organizational structures and operation.

o Create a budget for relevant expected costs and earnings or benefits over the first five years of a proposed economic initiative.

o Analyze how a proposed initiative, once implemented, may impact aspects of a care setting and ways in which negative impacts could be mitigated.

Competency 2: Develop ethical and culturally equitable solutions to economic problems within a health care organization in an effort to improve the quality of care and services offered.

o Propose a plan to roll out an economic initiative that will enable a care setting to successfully implement it in an ethical and culturally equitable way that will ensure the initiative achieves quality or service improvements.

Competency 3: Justify the qualitative and quantitative information used to guide economic decision making to stakeholders and colleagues.

o Justify the relevance and value of the quantitative and qualitative economic, financial, and scholarly evidence used to support recommendations throughout a plan.

Competency 4: Develop ethical and culturally equitable economic strategies to address dynamic environmental forces and ensure the future security of an organization's resources and its ability to provide quality care.

o Explain strategies that have been integrated into a proposed economic initiative that will ensure it can remain a viable asset to a care setting in the face of dynamic environmental forces.

Competency 5: Apply various communication methods in order to clearly, effectively, and efficiently relate information to stakeholders and colleagues related to economic data, findings, and strategies.

o Communicate a business and implementation plan in a logically structured and concise manner, writing content clearly with correct use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

o Effectively support a plan and recommendations with relevant economic data and scholarly sources, correctly formatting citations and references using current APA style.

Context

To support your work on this assessment, take time to read the contents of Assessment 3 Context [DOC]. (attached)

Questions to Consider

As you prepare to complete this assessment, you may want to think about other related issues to deepen your understanding or broaden your viewpoint. You are encouraged to consider the questions below and discuss them with a fellow learner, a work associate, an interested friend, or a member of your professional community. Note that these questions are for your own development and exploration and do not need to be completed or submitted as part of your assessment.

Do you think that cost shifting is a fair practice, or that it should it be legally banned?

Why would a change in a hospital's variable costs change the hospital's profit-maximizing price?

How do ethics and economic decision making come together when addressing health care issues?

What is the highest-impact facet of health care economics that relates to your current or desired leadership role? What action steps and resources might you use to assure objective and ethical economic decision making in that role?

Resources

Suggested Resources

The resources provided here are optional. You may use other resources of your choice to prepare for this assessment; however, you will need to ensure that they are appropriate, credible, and valid.

Resources

Guiding Questions: Implementation Plan for a New Economic Opportunity [DOC].

Doran, C. M. (2010). Critique of an economic evaluation using the Drummond checklist. Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, 8(6), 357-359.

Eisenberg, D., Freed, G. L., Davis, M. M., Singer, D., & Prosser, L. A. (2011). Valuing health at different ages. Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, 9(3), 149-156.

Kirisits, A., &Redekop, W. K. (2013). The economic evaluation of medical devices: Challenges ahead. Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, 11(1), 15-26.

Mukherjee, T., Al Rahahleh, N., Lane, W., & Dunn, J. (2016). The capital budgeting process of healthcare organizations: A review of surveys. Journal of Healthcare Management, 61(1) 58-77.

Internet Resources

These resources provide different templates for health care delivery budgets:

Danna, D. (2016). Learning and mastering the operating budget.

California Department of Public Health. (n.d.). Budget cover sheet [XLS].

Missouri Department of Health & Senior Services. (n.d.). Budget preparation worksheet [PDF].

The Community Guide. (2010). Economic evaluation abstraction form, version 4.0 [PDF].

These resources provide analyses and instructions for different health care delivery budgets:

Pritchard, G. (2016). How to develop an operating budget for a nursing unit.

Lyday, K. (2012). The value of alternative analysis [PDF].

The Community Guide. (n.d.). Economic reviews.

The Community Guide. (n.d.). Understanding and using the economic evidence [PDF].

Assessment Instructions

In this assessment, you will plan for all pertinent details involved in implementing an new initiative.

Scenario

The senior management members have sent you their thanks and notes on your feasibility study for your proposed economic initiative. They have determined that your proposal has the potential to benefit the organization in both the short and long term. The last step in this process is to complete a thorough implementation plan for your proposed initiative. This plan will need to include a budget of relevant expected material, staffing, and capital costs over the first five years of the initiative (see the Resources for some examples and guides about budget planning), as well as projected earnings from the initiative for the care setting. You must also include a plan and timeline for rolling the initiative out, an analysis of how it may impact other aspects of the care setting, an explanation how it can remain viable in the face of environmental changes, and sufficient relevant supporting evidence.

Directions

In your 6-10 page plan, you have been asked to be sure to address the following. Note: The bullet points below correspond to grading criteria in the scoring guide. Be sure your work is, at minimum, addressing each of the bullets below. You may also want to read the scoring guide and the Guiding Questions: Implementation Plan for a New Economic Opportunity document to better understand the performance levels that relate to each grading criterion:

Create a budget for relevant expected costs and earnings or benefits over the first five years of a proposed economic initiative.

Propose a plan to roll out your economic initiative that will enable your care setting to successfully implement it in an ethical and culturally equitable way that will ensure achievement of quality or service improvements.

Analyze how your proposed initiative, once implemented, may impact other aspects of your care setting and ways in which negative impacts could be mitigated.

Explain strategies you have integrated into your proposed economic initiative that will ensure it can remain a viable asset to your care setting in the face of dynamic environmental forces.

Justify the relevance and value of the quantitative and qualitative economic, financial, and scholarly evidence you used to support your recommendations throughout your plan.

Communicate your business and implementation plan in a logically structured and concise manner, writing content clearly with correct use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

Effectively support your plan and recommendations with relevant economic data and scholarly sources, correctly formatting citations and references using current APA style.

Additional Requirements

Length: 6-10 double-spaced, typed pages (not including title page and reference list). Your paper should be succinct yet substantive.

o Be sure to include a separate title page and reference list.
o Your completed budget plan should be included as an appendix within your final submission.

APA formatting: Resources and citations are formatted according to current APA style.

Resources: Cite a minimum of 3-5 authoritative and scholarly resources. Be sure to include specific economic data and support as part of your cited resources.

Portfolio prompt: You are required to save this learning activity to your ePortfolio, in the Professional Showcase binder.