Your work with Intravalley Health has been well received. In fact, you have gained a reputation for insightful analysis. Given this, the board chair has asked you to assemble a consulting team to assist another healthcare organization on whose board he also serves - and where his mother receives her routine care.

The task for your team is to research and analyze the organization and develop a new organizational strategy for the Arroyo Fresco Community Health Center. This strategy will be presented to the Arroyo Fresco board via a written report and a summarizing presentation.

The Report (20 of the 30% value of this assignment)

Your report should be a brief seven to ten-page paper (excluding tile page, abstract, and reference list), which includes:

Discussion of new strategy, research support for the strategy, knowledge of best practices in reorganization.
Analysis of a new organizational structure or ownership, if needed, supported by research completed along with examples of the pros and cons.
Specific goals and recommendations for the future, new and unique ideas or research supported rationale for continuing or changing current practices.

Description of how strategy will be executed and measured, including financing, revenue and expense. How will you pay for the changes you recommend? This is a critical part of the exercise.

The Presentation (10 of the 30% value of this assignment)

You can expect to have approximately 10 minutes to present your findings to the Arroyo Fresco board of directors. The presentation can be in any format that can be viewed in a standalone mode (i.e. without internet service; the Community Health Center has a small technology budget). While PowerPoint is a popular choice, you are encouraged to use any presentation modality that can be viewed on a Microsoft operating system.

The strategy should be formulated using the information from the case study (found in the Course Resources tab, eReadings folder) and your research, including an analysis of the results, and should take into account current concerns including health care reform, the political environment in Arizona, the state of the economy, financing, and leadership and management principles learned during this course.

Research Paper (35% of class grade) Please read to the end. If your selected topic does not accommodate one or more of the listed topics you will need to select a topic from below. Sorry for any confusion.
I sent a mini lecture to supplement the Research assignment for 660 to the UMUC email you listed:
Note: I may have responded in the discussion thread affirming a research topic. Be sure your selection includes one or more of the bullets in the original assignment.

You have been hired as the vice president for operations for Intravalley Health. One of your first tasks is to educate the board of directors concerning the evolving nature of healthcare and how it impacts the health system.
Identify a professional or scholarly journal article that addresses a topic within one of these three broad areas:

• Change management, conflict resolution, strategic communication, preparedness, or crisis management in healthcare.

• Human resources specific to healthcare: physician relations, staff recruitment and retention, in-service training, policy making and enforcement, counseling and professional development, credentialing, or management.

• The patient experience and satisfaction surveys.

• Medical tourism.

Access, review, and integrate the findings of the journal article into a 10-12 page analysis of your topic. Your exploration should include background of the issue, relevant laws and regulations, and strategic and operational impacts on health services organizations.
Use of the 6 dimensions of Critical Thinking/Blooms is required format. See Grading rubric
The board of director consists of preeminent social scientists, therefore your report should be delivered in APA format, including an abstract and references. The page count pertains to the body of the paper only.
Some administrative notes:

• There is tendency to default to a hospital setting when considering issues in healthcare. You can examine other sectors such as long term care, palliative care, retail clinics, or community health centers.

• It is expected the depth of the research goes beyond your studies in the core courses (MSM students) or HCAD 600 (MSHCA students). Please review the policy for re-use of prior course work - even if it is your own.

• In order to provide a comprehensive assessment, the selected journal article should be supported (or refuted) by other scholarly sources.

• As you know from your Library Skills course, sources such as Time, Forbes, the Washington Post and other newspapers, while often useful information resources, would not be appropriate primary sources for this paper. As a general guideline, if you can find the resource at a magazine stand, it probably is not a professional journal. The articles you choose should be recent (last 5 years) and should be primary rather than secondary. (Please see the APA manual if you do not recall the difference.)
Place your paper in the Assignment folder.

Address that scenario but segment your proposition into each of the six segments. Required format.

Knowledge: What does your boss/board need to Know?

Comprehension: What does the board/boss need too understand about the issues?

Application: What examples/application would you use as part of your presentation to help validate your position/recommendation?

Analysis: What is your analysis of the situation the boss/board needs to hear?

Synthesis: What new idea do you bring to the table that makes your presentation more viable and more valuable to the board? E.g. what are the long term implications and to show you've thought through the issues?

Evaluation: What is your evaluation of the recommendations you are making, the likely downsides and challenges and are there any likely unintended consequences. What does the board need to know to make an "informed decision" about the issues?

Let me know if this clarification helps. This format is required for your "education" and comprehension and understanding the board will acquire?