The financial decisions that a health care organization makes today can have far-reaching consequences for its future survival, from enabling its providers to better deliver care and services to patients to supporting the organization's ongoing clinical research initiatives to facilitating the essential functions and processes its professional staff performs on a daily basis. To prepare for this Application Assignment, review the information on value realization, return on investment analysis, and the use of cost information to make special decisions in health care organizations presented in this week's Learning Resource readings, as well as the information on capital investment analysis and return on investment-including financial (revenue-producing) versus non-financial (non-revenue-producing) return on investment--the presenters discuss in this week's Course Media. To complete this Application Assignment, write a 3- to 4-page paper in which you:

Describe methods of analysis all organizations commonly use to make financial decisions, including at least two methods used to analyze capital investment decisions and at least one method used to make special decisions (i.e., decisions that an organization makes on an as-needed basis).

Differentiate between financial returns on investment (i.e., those with tangible benefits) and non-financial returns on investment (i.e., those with intangible benefits), supporting the differentiation with two examples of each-with one example drawn from health care in general and the other example drawn specifically from health information technology.

Your written assignments must follow APA guidelines. Be sure to support your work with specific citations from this week's Learning Resources and additional scholarly sources as appropriate. Refer to the Pocket Guide to APA Style to ensure your in-text citations and reference list are correct.