healthcare paper

This writing assignment, The Primary Care Center, is due at the end of week 7. Your due date/time is Monday, November 19th at 9 am. This assignment is worth 130 points and consists of five (5) questions to which you should write between one and three paragraphs each.

Read the background of the catchment area from the assignment and use it as a backdrop for your clinic. You can choice a large urban or any other area if you prefer. Although the assignment doesn’t make it clear, you should decide if you are talking about a primary care center or an urgent care center, since we know these are different types of facilities.

Answer each of the questions comprehensively but in a straight forward manner, using a subtitle and new section for each question.  The assignment will also require that you use at least three quality resources. You can use our current or former textbook as a reference, and Strayer’s online library (Resource Center tab) to seek out peer-reviewed, professional references. Simple google lookups are not considered to be quality sources, unless they direct you to more professionally written sources as mentioned above. The assignment itself can be found in the Course Guide link and also the Week 3 Tab, and will also include another link to its grading rubric. I will use this rubric to grade your papers.

Writing a well-organized, grammatically correct, college level paper that answers questions specifically and thoroughly can be a challenging task. However, it is extremely important to be able to communicate your thoughts in writing, staying focused on the question, and responding in a concise manner. If you are unsure of your writing skills, please take advantage of the many resources Strayer U. makes available to you.

Within iCollege you can find Grammarly.com, a free, automated grammar tool. And I highly recommend using the Virtual Writing Center in which you can work directly with a writing professor. They have actually set up using a separate BB shell, but it is easy enough to enroll yourself and seek out their help. I am attaching the directions for enrollment here for you. Depending upon the day/time you want to meet online, writing professors rotate who is on-call, and you can find all their information in the Writing Space BB shell. I will offer extra credit on your paper if you use the Virtual Writing Center’s services. If you do so, email and let me know once you submit your paper. Remember also to proofread your paper! We all make typing mistakes as we think and write at the same time. Read it over several times. Do your sentences make logical sense?

We are now using the Strayer Writing Standards (SWS) for formatting and reference rules. The SWS document should give you the information you need, but ask me if you need help.

The last point I want to make before I go into the questions themselves is about Plagiarism. I’m sure you realize that you are not to copy another person’s paper. But it is also important to know that copying sentences or paragraphs directly from your sources, legitimate or otherwise, is also considered to be plagiarism. This is a common misunderstanding many undergraduate students have. You must not copy but rather glean what is relevant from your sources and PARAPHRASE using your own words. The Safe Assign Program is meant to help you keep your copy rate down. Once you submit your paper you will receive an Originality Report. If your percentage is 25% or more, rewrite the highlighted sections in your own words and resubmit.

Let’s get into the paper itself:

Put yourself in the position of Manager of this new Primary or Urgent Care Clinic. After the first question about some of the factors that have facilitated the growth of urgent care facilities in general, you should consider the remaining questions from a more specific point of view. Here is your chance to be creative about what you would like to see done in your clinic, but remember to stay within the scope of practice and remain realistic.

Here are the questions with my notes and suggestions in red. Write a five to seven (5-7) page paper in which you:

1) Analyze some of the key social, political, and economic factors that have led to the proliferation of urgent care facilities and primary care practices over the last 20-30 years.

This is a broad question so think on a wholistic level. There is no need to separate out these three types of factors as they blend into each other. There is no one right answer, just use your own experience and analysis. Think about how the delivery of health care has changed over the last few decades, i.e., use of ER for urgent care matters, emphasis on preventive care verses specialization. Include some of the recent legislation, like the ACA. This is not a sociology paper, that is, we’ve always had low-income people and sometimes inequitable access. But how is healthcare changing?

2) Create a comprehensive mission statement for the clinic and discuss how it will facilitate the provision of quality services.

Now you want to be more specific and relate this to your clinic. You are the manager and you work for the owners. What is your vision, your mission? Who will you serve and how will you serve them? I suggest you research what a good mission statement is…but don’t copy one, use your own.

3) Analyze and discuss one (1) or more directions the clinic might take to grow its business. Determine what factors you would consider when deciding what services to provide in-house and which ones to affiliate with other institutions.

Once your clinic is seeing patients on a regular basis, now where do you want to take it? What additional services might you offer? Be mindful to stay with the scope of your mission; you can’t do everything for everyone. This is a clinic, not a major hospital. Include also if you will offer some ancillary services, like lab and radiology, in house or farm it out.

4) Decide how you will determine if the clinic is meeting its goals. Identify three (3) performance measurements you could use to evaluate the success of the clinic’s services. Begin by naming a goal, and then identify a quantifiable measurement you could use for each to determine if you are coming close or falling short of the goal.

The most likely goal would be to provide quality services, so start with that.

Admittedly this is a very difficult question, even for those who are actually responsible for this in real life. Chapter 7 in our text is a good resource, but by doing some research you can really understand what is at stake. Once you identify 3 key quantifiable measures for your clinic’s overall performance, remember to include exactly how you would measure if your clinic is successful at these. Don’t just repeat how important each performance is; include some examples of data (metrics) you could use to determine if you are meeting your goals. In other words, what could you use to actually measure quality?

5) Determine how you would then address whatever opportunities for improvement seem to exist and what processes you would put in place.

Any mention of ongoing procedures you could use to keep your clinic providing quality services would be good, i.e., quality improvement teams (CQI).

Formatting your paper:

· Title page

· Introduction/Abstract (optional)

· Use a separate heading for each question so that I am sure to know which question you are answering. Just use a brief heading, not the entire question. This will end up improving your grade!

· Use correct grammar, sentence structure, punctuation, etc.

· Separate Reference page with a minimum of 3 peer-reviewed sources.

· Peer-reviewed resources are those that come from Journals and other publications in our online library.

· Use SWS formatting within your paper and on your reference page.

My overall advice:

Keep your thoughts organized and answer one question at a time. Start each question with a general introductory thought, then provide some specifics, and conclude your answer to each question in one summary sentence. Keep your answers to the point and don’t repeat yourself over and over again. Remember also to think like an administrator. The clinical personnel are handling the patients; you are making it possible for them to do so.