Focus of the Final Paper

The U.S. health care system has numerous known issues that affect the overall quality, access, and cost of services available. For your Final Paper, you will create an eight- to ten-page proposal (excluding the title and reference pages) on your solution to one of these issues. In the proposal, you will describe the nature of the issue, trace the history of its development, describe what has and has not been done to address it thus far, provide a set of recommendations on what should be done to address it in the future, and discuss how major stakeholders should be involved to make your proposed changes.

Select one of the following issues in health care for the topic of your Final Paper:

1. The cost of health care

2. The health care workforce

3. The uninsured and under-insured population

4. Medical and health information technology

5. Select your own topic. If you would like to use a topic other than the ones listed above, you must get approval from your instructor by the end of Week Two of the course.

Specifically, you should address the following in your proposal:

1. Executive Summary: Provide a brief overview of content of your proposal.

2. Statement of the problem: Define and analyze the major problems related to this issue.

3. History of the problem: Review the major developments in the evolution of this problem in the U.S. How did this issue develop historically? How did we get to where we are now?

4. International context: Compare and contrast this problem in the U.S. to that of other countries. How does this issue in the U.S. compare to other countries? Is the issue more common here or in other countries and why?

5. Stakeholders: Describe the role of major stakeholders in the problem. How have federal and state governments and the health care industry worked to address this issue so far? What have been the successes and failures of their attempts?

6. Policy: Have the P.P.A.C.A. and other federal policies addressed this issue? What has been the impact of their action or non-action?

7. Recommendations: What should the government, the health care industry, and health care consumers do to address this issue in the future? Which stakeholders need to be involved to implement these recommendations and how? Provide a justification for why you believe each recommendation will address one or more of the problems related to this issue.

8. Conclusion: Construct a brief conclusion that highlights the key points from your proposal and describes the expected outcomes if your recommendations were to be implemented.