During Week 1, your instructor will divide the class into small groups of three or four students. Throughout the term, your team will create the components of a research paper and presentation, which will both be submitted in their entirety in Week 7. The project will involve researching the demographic profile of a specific market area, identifying healthcare needs based on that profile, proposing a specific health service or product based on those needs, and developing a basic marketing plan for that service or product.

Use a group texting solution such as WhatsApp to communicate with one another. If that is not possible for any member of the team, your instructor will set up a group discussion board in the course shell.

Work collaboratively on the paper using Google Docs Each student will need a free Google account. One member of the team will upload a Word doc to Google Docs and invite the other team members and your instructor to share the document. As you do the research, contribute your findings to the shared document. Suggestion: pay particular attention to the accurate citation of research sources and be sure to cite sources as you go, or inserting them later will be extremely difficult and time consuming. Use APA style and formatting.

Three separate components of the paper will be submitted in Weeks 3, 5, and 6, respectively. For each of these three components, download and save in MS Word a copy of the paper for submission to the Dropbox. Each member of the team must upload an identical copy to their own Dropbox for grading. In addition, the team will compile all three components, make any needed changes, and submit the entire paper in Week 7 by downloading and saving in MS Word a copy of the paper for submission to the Dropbox. Each member of the team must upload an identical copy of the entire to their own Dropbox for grading.

Your team will also work collaboratively to summarize the paper into an eight slide (excluding introduction and references slides) online presentation using Prezi Pay particular attention to the accurate citation of the research sources and images, charts, graphs, etc. used on the slides and provide your instructor with a link to the presentation in Week 7.

Meet Your Team and Set Up

During Week 1, your instructor will assign the teams. Introduce yourselves and set up group messaging on WhatsApp or in the course shell. (You can initially email each other through the course shell to exchange phone numbers for WhatsApp.) Each student will need a free Google account to contribute to the paper, so if any member does not have one, now is the time to set that up.

Also during Week 1, one member of the team will upload a Word doc to Google Docs and invite the other team members and your instructor to share the document. Divide the work so team members contribute cross-functionally based upon work experience and/or field of study to the development of the marketing plan. Begin with the demographic site analysis as described below (due Week 3).

As team members do research, each will contribute their findings to the paper. Suggestion: be sure to cite your sources as you go, or inserting them later will be extremely difficult and time consuming!

Demographic Site Analysis

The demographic site analysis provides a summary of a specific market area. For this paper component, your team will choose a specific geographic area (locality, ZIP code, or census tract) and prepare a demographic profile of the people who live in that area from data available at the website of the U.S. Census Bureau or another reputable demographic sources (for example, the local Chamber of Commerce, a state hospital association, or another government source).

For online courses, teams will agree upon a specific market to analyze and prepare a profile of that market. For blended courses, teams will analyze and prepare a profile of the local market. This profile should provide specific demographic information about the population, including relevant facts and figures. For example, your team might include information on population growth, gender, race and ethnicity, education level, marital status, age ranges, or income ranges.

If available, your team might also include data regarding health characteristics of the market's population. Data are sometimes available from local or state health departments or from national health registries (such as the CDC). Your team is encouraged to include graphs or charts that help describe the demographics of the geographic area (at least one is required).

Be sure to keep track as you go of the sources for any graphs, charts or images used in the the paper and later in the presentation. You will need to cite them in your paper and on your presentation slides, and keeping a list now will save you the work of recreating the information later.

Your team will also include a market profile - a brief overview of the healthcare organizations currently serving this market. Briefly identify and describe the hospitals, clinics, or other healthcare service providers in this area.

After preparing the demographic and market profile, your team will then analyze potential healthcare needs that one might anticipate in this geographic area. The analysis should address the following questions.

What does this demographic profile tell your team about potential healthcare utilization and health behaviors?

What does the profile tell your team about the needed healthcare services or products?

Are all of these needs currently being met by the existing healthcare organizations? If not, which needs represent a market opportunity?

Use Google Docs to collaboratively write the paper and as a team, and invite your instructor as a contributor so she/he can view the progress of the paper online.

The length of the demographic site analysis should be 600 to 800 words. Your team should cite all sources in APA style, both in-text and at the end of the document. Your team is required to have at least three sources to support this component of the Course Paper.

Each member of the team must download a copy of the Google Doc and save it in MS Word for submission to their own Dropbox for grading.