QUESTION 1

Option A: Hospitals frequently seek ways to ensure survival. Sometimes an adversarial climate cannot be avoided when the action that is being considered is controversial. For example, a hospital may seek to expand its market reach by opening an inpatient drug treatment facility in a small suburban township. The county where the township sits has seen a steady rise in heroin addiction, as well as an increase in hepatitis cases. As a manager, identify the three possible categories of clients within this new clientele network. Give at least one example of a client for each category and explain the reason for your decision.

Guided Response: Review several of your classmates' posts. Provide a substantive response to at least two of your peers. Discuss the benefits of expanding your network. What opportunities could this provide for your organization?

Option B: In this increasingly difficult economic environment, many organizations have been forced to take drastic operational and systematic measures to stay afloat and maintain their position within the community. If you were a health care manager leading an organization in which its financial, political, and/or social position was threatened, what survival strategies would you employ? Please choose at least three strategies from your textbook to discuss and thoroughly explain the rationale for your choices.

QUESTION 2

Change is usually positive, but it can also be difficult to embrace at times. Employees can be resistant to change, while managers may feel that it is necessary for organizational stability. Discuss the challenge of change as it relates to health care organizations. What is the overall impact of change on the organization, its employees, and its constituents, and what role does the manager play as an agent of change? In addition to responding to these questions, review the examples of successful change in your textbook and choose two examples to discuss in greater detail. What did you learn from these examples? In each case, how did the individuals overcome the barriers to change, and what were the resulting benefits?

ASSIGNMENT

The Health Care Scene: Contemporary Trends

As health care leaders, it is important to understand that health care is quite a dynamic field. Its constant changes are a result of continuing trends in regulation, policy, patient and provider advocacy efforts, as well as increasingly sophisticated technology and industry benchmarking guidelines.

For your assignment you review the possible topics for your Senior Project located in Week Five of your online course or in the "Components of Course Evaluation" section of this guide, and select the topic your training program will address. If you choose not to select a topic from the approved topic list, you must have your original topic approved by your instructor prior to submitting this assignment.

For this assignment, focus on a specific contemporary trend in health care and be sure to include all of the following influences:

• Changes in client characteristics
• Regulation of the health care industry
• Reimbursement patterns and mandates
• Restructuring of health care organizations
• Impact of technology
• Ongoing social and ethical factors

Address the information above as it pertains to your selected topic, in an eight to ten slide (excluding title and reference slides) PowerPoint presentation.

Your presentation should conclude with a summary describing the following concerns:

• Overall, why should health care managers be aware of this change and trend?
• What impact does this trend have on the stakeholder groups involved (e.g., patients, providers, administrators, third-party payers, legislators, etc.) for a specific organization specified (e.g., for profit, nonprofit, hospital, outpatient clinic, nursing home, etc.).

The information in this presentation will later be used as part of your Senior Project to set the context for the audience you select for a training program on the contemporary trend identified here.

Your presentation must include detailed speaker's notes (i.e., at least 150 words) for each slide as well as a minimum of one to two scholarly sources from the Ashford University Library and one to two current, scholarly web sources.

Your presentation, and any citations used, must be in APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center. Examples of scholarly web sources are available in this week's recommended websites. These sources will also count toward the required sources for your Senior Project. Your presentation must be engaging and relevant to your audience. Lines of text on a slide will not be sufficient for this assignment. It should contain images, graphics, and/or multimedia that communicate your training program clearly to your audience. For tips on creating an excellent presentation, read this overview.