Overview
Draft a written proposal and implementation guidelines for an organizational policy that you believe would help lead to an improvement in quality and performance associated with the benchmark metric for which you advocated action in Assessment 1.
Note: Each assessment in this course builds on the work you completed in the previous assessment. Therefore, you must complete the assessments in this course in the order in which they are presented.
In advocating for institutional policy changes related to local, state, or federal health care laws or policies, health leaders must be able to develop and present clear and well-written policy and practice guidelines change proposals that will enable a team, unit, or the organization as a whole to resolve relevant performance issues and bring about improvements in the quality and safety of health care. This assessment offers you an opportunity to take the lead in proposing such changes.
By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and assessment criteria:
Competency 2: Analyze relevant health care laws and regulations and their applications and effects on processes within a health care team or organization.
Propose a succinct policy and guidelines to enable a team, unit, or the organization as a whole to implement recommended strategies to resolve the performance issue related to the relevant local, state, or federal health care policy or law.
Competency 3: Lead the development and implementation of ethical and culturally sensitive policies that improve health outcomes for individuals, organizations, and populations.
Recommend ethical, evidence-based strategies to resolve a performance issue related to health care policy or law.
Competency 4: Evaluate relevant indicators of performance, such as benchmarks, research, and best practices, for health care policies and law for patients, organizations, and populations.
Explain the need for creating an organizational policy or practice to address a shortfall in meeting a prescribed metric benchmark.
Competency 5: Develop strategies to work collaboratively with policy makers, stakeholders, and colleagues to address environmental (governmental and regulatory) forces.
Analyze the potential effects of environmental factors on recommended strategies.
Identify colleagues, individual stakeholders, or stakeholder groups who should be involved in further development and implementation of proposed policy and guidelines and recommended strategies.
Competency 6: Apply various methods of communicating with policy makers, stakeholders, colleagues, and patients to ensure that communication in a given situation is professional, clear, efficient, and effective.
Communicate a proposed policy and guidelines and recommended strategies in a professional and persuasive manner, writing content clearly and logically, with correct use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
Effectively support arguments with relevant sources, correctly formatting citations and references using current APA style.
Questions to Consider
As you prepare to complete this assessment, you may want to think about other related issues to deepen your understanding or broaden your viewpoint. You are encouraged to consider the questions below and discuss them with a fellow learner, a work associate, an interested friend, or a member of your professional community. Note that these questions are for your own development and exploration and do not need to be completed or submitted as part of your assessment.
Consider the underperforming metric you evaluated in your Dashboard Benchmark Evaluation in Assessment 1 as having the potential to greatly improve the overall quality or performance of a team or the whole organization.
What ethical, evidence-based strategies would you recommend to resolve the performance issue related to the underperforming metric you evaluated?
What does the literature suggest are potential strategies to improve performance for your targeted benchmark?
How would these strategies ensure improvement or compliance with the relevant local, state, or federal health care policy or law?
How would you propose to apply these strategies in the context of Eagle Creek Hospital or your own practice setting?
How would you ensure that these strategies are ethical and culturally inclusive in their application?
Suggested Resources
Organizational Ethics Decision-Making Process in Health Care | Transcript
This interactive media piece applies an ethical decision-making process to a workplace health care issue in a hypothetical scenario. The scenario may give you some ideas about how to incorporate ethical considerations into your policy change, as well as some stakeholder engagement and policy implementation ideas for Assessments 3 and 4.
Library Resources
These resources explore research protocols across health care delivery systems:
Brown, L. J., & McIntyre, E. L. (2014). The contribution of primary health care research, evaluation and development-supported research to primary health care policy and practice. Australian Journal of Primary Health, 20(1), 47–55.
Gordon, L., Modayil, M. V., Pavlik, J., & Morris, C. D. (2015). Collaboration with behavioral health care facilities to implement systemwide tobacco control policies — California, 2012. Preventing Chronic Disease, 12, E13.
Stetler, C. B. (2001). Updating the Stetler model of research utilization to facilitate evidence-based practice. Nursing Outlook, 49(6) , 272–279.
These resources examine health-care policies in the U.S. and abroad:
Rawlins, M. D. (2014). Engaging with health-care policy. The Lancet, 383, S7–8.
Strehlenert, H., Richter-Sundberg, L., Nyström, M. E., & Hasson, H. (2015). Evidence-informed policy formulation and implementation: A comparative case study of two national policies for improving health and social care in Sweden. Implementation Science, 10, 1–11.
Whitlock, R. (2016, April 15). United States: Talking about the challenge of quality in health care policy development. Mondaq Business Briefing.
Internet Resources
These resources provide links to quality improvement sites that will help you complete your assessment:
Institute for Healthcare Improvement. (2016). Retrieved from http://www.ihi.org
National Quality Forum. (2016). Retrieved from http://www.qualityforum.org
National Collaborating Centre for Methods and Tools. (2011). Stetler model of evidence-based practice. Retrieved from http://www.nccmt.ca/resources/search/83
Assessment Instructions
In this assessment, you will build on the dashboard benchmark evaluation work you completed in Assessment 1.
Preparation
After reviewing your benchmark evaluation, senior leaders in the organization have asked you to draft a policy change proposal and practice guidelines addressing the benchmark metric for which you advocated action.
In their request, senior leaders have asked for a proposal of not more than 2–4 pages that includes a concise policy description (about one paragraph), practice guidelines, and 3–5 credible references to relevant research, case studies, or best practices that support your analysis and recommendations. You are also expected to be precise, professional, and persuasive in justifying the merit of your proposed actions.
When creating your policy and guidelines it may be helpful to utilize the template that your current care setting or organization uses. Your setting’s risk management or quality department could be a good resource for finding an appropriate template or format. If you are not currently in practice, or your care setting does not have these resources, there are numerous appropriate templates freely available on the Web.
Proposal Requirements
Note: The tasks outlined below correspond to grading criteria in the scoring guide.
In your proposal, senior leaders have asked that you:
Explain why a change in organizational policy or practice guidelines is needed to address a shortfall in meeting a performance benchmark prescribed by applicable local, state, or federal health care laws or policies.
What is the current benchmark for the organization? What is the numeric score for the underperformance?
How might the benchmark underperformance be affecting the quality of care being provided or the operations of the organization?
What are the potential repercussions of not making any changes?
Recommend ethical, evidence-based strategies to resolve the performance issue.
What does the evidence-based literature suggest are potential strategies to improve performance for your targeted benchmark?
How would these strategies ensure improved performance or compliance with applicable local, state, or federal health care laws or policies?
How would you propose to apply these strategies in the context of your chosen professional practice setting?
How would you ensure that the application of these strategies is ethical and culturally inclusive?
Does your policy encompass the key components of your recommendations?
Analyze the potential effects of environmental factors on your recommended strategies.
What regulatory considerations could affect your recommended strategies?
What organizational resources could affect your recommended strategies (for example, staffing, finances, logistics, and support services)?
Are your policy and guidelines realistic in light of existing environmental factors?
Propose a succinct policy and guidelines to enable a team, unit, or the organization as a whole to implement recommended strategies to resolve the performance issue related to the relevant local, state, or federal health care policy or law.
Identify colleagues, individual stakeholders, or stakeholder groups who should be involved in further development and implementation of your proposed policy, guidelines, and recommended strategies.
Why is it important to engage these colleagues, individual stakeholders, or stakeholder groups?
Do your proposed guidelines help colleagues, individual stakeholders, or stakeholder groups understand how to implement your proposed policy?
How might engaging these colleagues, individual stakeholders, or stakeholder groups result in a better organizational policy and smoother implementation?
Are your proposal and recommended strategies realistic, given the care team, unit, or organization you are considering?
Communicate your proposed policy, guidelines, and recommended strategies in a professional and persuasive manner.
Write clearly and logically, using correct grammar, punctuation, and mechanics.
Integrate relevant sources to support your arguments, correctly formatting source citations and references using current APA style.
Did you cite an additional 3–5 credible sources to support your analysis and recommendations?
