Healthcare Administration Capstone Discussion 3

Healthcare Administration Capstone – Week #3 Lecture 1

Diving into the Literature

This week, you will complete Chapter 2: the Literature Review. As was mentioned last week, be sure to avoid the use of sources that are not valid or are questionable in nature. If you have a question about the validity of a particular source, feel free to ask your peers or your instructor in the “Project Questions” discussion forum.

By now, you have researched your problem enough to have completed Chapter 1. Last week, you were urged to accurately record your references to assist in developing Chapters 2 and 5. This week, you will dive much deeper into your research problem by reviewing the existing literature.

There are a few things to keep in mind as you develop this chapter. The first is to make sure that your information is current. A good rule of thumb to follow is that 80% of your sources/references are within the last 5 years. Healthcare is a rapidly changing field and studies or sources over the 5 year mark are certainly outdated. The exception to this would be those studies or sources that are referred to as germinal in nature. What is meant by germinal? Perhaps the best way to describe this is to give an example.

Let’s assume that we are researching turnover within the healthcare organization and the costs associated therein. As we peel the research onion, we find that leadership plays a huge role in turnover. Another layer suggests that it is a lack of communication from leadership. In our research, we find that this issue was originally researched by Bass in the early 1990s. Although this is much older than the 5 years, these studies are included in our literature review as they are germinal (beginning) in nature.

The second thing to keep in mind is to make sure that you have come “full circle.” What does this mean? It means that as you dig into the literature, you will eventually find that there is a finite number of authors who are writing on your particular topic. You will know that you have found all of them when you discover that each author is citing one another. As a simplistic example, if you find that there are three authors, Smith, Davis, and Jones who are writing on the topic, eventually you will find that Davis cites Smith and Jones, and Jones cites Smith and Davis, etc. You may indeed find that there are only three authors or you may find a dozen. Just be sure to come “full circle.”

The final point to note on the literature review is more of a suggestion that you may or may not choose to implement. Students who have successfully completed their capstone projects have created an Excel database regarding their sources. This is known as a taxonomy. Imagine if there are indeed a dozen authors who write about your particular problem and if each of them has only written twice on the subject that is a total of 24 articles to try and keep straight! Odds are that you will have even more. You will find that such a system helps tremendously when you go to write the remainder of your project.

The following table is an example of the information that you could keep in your taxonomy. The summary and key words are simply ways to help you organize the information. Some students have copied and pasted the article abstracts into the summary area. Others have found that a brief summary suffices.

Author(s)	Date	Title	Publication/Source	Summary	Key Words
Davis, J.	Dec, 2015	Understanding Communication in the Workforce	Journal of Management Retrieved from EBSCO	Defines the role that management plays in communicating effectively to employees regarding change.  Discusses role that suggestion boxes as well as open feedback sessions have on curbing turnover as a result of change.	Change management, turnover
Smith, R.	April, 2014	Tell it Like it is	Journal of Organizational Leadership - retrieved from ProQuest	Discusses the need to have open and honest communication with employees.  Due to the rumor mill, employees will make up information as needed to fill in gaps in management based communication.  This lowers morale and increases turnover.	Open and honest communication

 

As a reminder, Chapter 2 – the Literature Review, should be submitted by the end of this week. The following resources are available to assist you with this portion of your project:

http://libguides.uwf.edu/c.php?g=215199&p=1420520

http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/literature-reviews/