HSM 541 Health Services System WEEK 8 Final Exam

HSM 541 Health Services System WEEK 8 Final Exam

HSM 541 Health Services System WEEK 8 Final Exam

Question 1 (TCO A) You are the newly hired chief knowledge officer (CKO) for a midsized hospital in a semiurban area of the country. Your first task is to develop the organization’s strategic plan that will shape the development of a comprehensive network of services for their community.

The organization provides the usual array of inpatient services expected in a moderate-sized community hospital. A local nursing home and retirement community is for sale, and the organization is considering the purchase of that agency. Several physician practices are also interested in alliances with the hospital. There is a local county health department that provides some clinic services, primarily for the uninsured.

You’ve been asked to give a presentation to the board of directors on options to restructure the local delivery of healthcare services. The hospital’s president has asked you to focus your presentation on the common elements a comprehensive delivery system attempts to accomplish and to highlight innovative methods of restructuring. The presentation will lay out the requirements of an integrated healthcare delivery system.

Question 2 (TCO B) You are the newly hired Vice President of Human Resources for the Bayside Regional Health System. You have the responsibility for all of the usual human resources functions, including retention plans, the training and development function, and the recruitment process. In addition, you have the additional departments of volunteers and the hospital chaplaincy services.

You’ve identified a number of serious organizational issues. Turnover is high, there are many job vacancies, and a very high number of positions are considered hard-to-fill positions because of national workforce shortages. There are also a very high number of EEOC complaints over the past 5 years for an organization of this size. Employees were blunt in their criticisms of the organization and its management in an employee survey conducted just prior to your arrival.

The board of directors and the president know that they have serious human resource issues. They understand that management practices have to change in order to compete in the local healthcare market as an employer of choice. As in any healthcare organization, fiscal resources are limited, but the board is firmly committed to investing in a well-developed human resources plan that will decrease the turnover and stem the ever-growing turnover and vacancy rates. The president has asked you to attend the next board of directors meeting to share your plan for addressing these serious issues. What will you tell them? Outline the focus of your presentation and include the issues you have identified, as well as the recommended strategies for turning this around.

Question 3 (TCO C) You are the administrator of a small nonprofit rural hospital. You have been approached by a large for-profit healthcare system located about 75 mi away for talks about a possible merger. You know that the for-profit system limits the amount of Medicare and Medicaid patients treated for economic reasons. These controversial decisions present not only a major breakdown in the healthcare delivery system but also in the financing of healthcare for many individuals in the United States. Discuss the pros and cons of becoming part of this urban system.

Question 4 (TCO D) As the Executive Director of the National Association for Managed Care Organizations, you know that national healthcare reform will bring about revolutionary changes in your member organizations. Public outcry for changes has been heard loud and long, Congress is calling for reform, and providers are extremely frustrated with how you pay and control the utilization of services.

You have been invited by a congressional panel to discuss how the managed care industry can be overhauled to provide a more customer-responsive product and address the issue of national healthcare costs.

What are the high-priority issues that will need to be discussed to overhaul the managed care industry? What stakeholders must be considered in the planning process?

Question 5 (TCO E) You are the VP for human resources and have been charged to recommend a new healthcare benefits plan that will improve healthcare services for your employees but manage costs effectively. You employ approximately 1,800 employees, and the current health plan provides traditional healthcare services. You want to expand reimbursement for wellness and prevention services so that you can improve the health of your employees, thereby saving monies in your illness coverage, as well as nonproductive time in sick days.

You are meeting with the VP for finance and the president of the health system this afternoon. Discuss the pros and cons expanding the prevention benefits of the health plan, and describe what services would be offered.

Question 6 (TCO F) You are the Corporate Vice President for Quality for the Patient-First Healthcare System, a national system of acute care hospitals located throughout the United States. Your organization has just approved additional monies for developing a new quality management system. Each hospital has implemented its own quality management program. Some of the programs demonstrate stellar results and high levels of patient satisfaction, whereas other hospitals have less impressive results.

Your focus as the corporate VP for quality is to develop a corporate quality improvement program that will be standard throughout all of the company’s hospitals. It must also be responsive to any local needs or issues. How will you craft that plan? What will you include in your plan? Include some specific examples of what you might measure. How will you get buy-in from your individual organizations that already have their own plan?

Question 7 (TCO G) You’ve just been hired as the chief operating officer (COO) for a new orthopedic physician practice. The new practice was created by two previously independent practice groups that had fines for governmental regulatory violations, as well as suspected fraudulent billing practices. You just received a subpoena to appear in court and testify as to your role in the organization and knowledge of billing practices.

All you know is that the clinic has recently purchased a new electronic billing and medical records system that is HIPAA compliant. One goal of this electronic system is to address all areas of compliance and to clean up any issues from the past. It is also intended to position the new organization as an organization with an impeccable reputation for compliance. Articulate your vision for this plan and the components that are required for its success. How will you justify the expense associated with your plan? Keep in mind that you have a newly formed organization and differing organizational cultures.

Important information for writing discussion questions and participation

Welcome to class

Hello class and welcome to the class and I will be your instructor for this course. This is a -week course and requires alot of time commitment, organization, and a high level of dedication. Please use the class syllabus to guide you through all the assignments required for the course. I have also attached the classroom policies to this announcement to know your expectations for this course. Please review this document carefully and ask me any questions if you do. You could email me at any time or send me a message via the “message” icon in halo if you need to contact me. I check my email regularly, so you should get a response within 24 hours. If you have not heard from me within 24 hours and need to contact me urgently, please send a follow up text to

I strongly encourage that you do not wait until the very last minute to complete your assignments. Your assignments in weeks 4 and 5 require early planning as you would need to present a teaching plan and interview a community health provider. I advise you look at the requirements for these assignments at the beginning of the course and plan accordingly. I have posted the YouTube link that explains all the class assignments in detail. It is required that you watch this 32-minute video as the assignments from week 3 through 5 require that you follow the instructions to the letter to succeed. Failure to complete these assignments according to instructions might lead to a zero. After watching the video, please schedule a one-on-one with me to discuss your topic for your project by the second week of class. Use this link to schedule a 15-minute session. Please, call me at the time of your appointment on my number. Please note that I will NOT call you.

Please, be advised I do NOT accept any assignments by email. If you are having technical issues with uploading an assignment, contact the technical department and inform me of the issue. If you have any issues that would prevent you from getting your assignments to me by the deadline, please inform me to request a possible extension. Note that working fulltime or overtime is no excuse for late assignments. There is a 5%-point deduction for every day your assignment is late. This only applies to approved extensions. Late assignments will not be accepted.

If you think you would be needing accommodations due to any reasons, please contact the appropriate department to request accommodations.

Plagiarism is highly prohibited. Please ensure you are citing your sources correctly using APA 7th edition. All assignments including discussion posts should be formatted in APA with the appropriate spacing, font, margin, and indents. Any papers not well formatted would be returned back to you, hence, I advise you review APA formatting style. I have attached a sample paper in APA format and will also post sample discussion responses in subsequent announcements.

Your initial discussion post should be a minimum of 200 words and response posts should be a minimum of 150 words. Be advised that I grade based on quality and not necessarily the number of words you post. A minimum of TWO references should be used for your initial post. For your response post, you do not need references as personal experiences would count as response posts. If you however cite anything from the literature for your response post, it is required that you cite your reference. You should include a minimum of THREE references for papers in this course. Please note that references should be no more than 5 years old except recommended as a resource for the class. Furthermore, for each discussion board question, you need ONE initial substantive response and TWO substantive responses to either your classmates or your instructor for a total of THREE responses. There are TWO discussion questions each week, hence, you need a total minimum of SIX discussion posts for each week. I usually post a discussion question each week. You could also respond to these as it would count towards your required SIX discussion posts for the week.

I understand this is a lot of information to cover in 5 weeks, however, the Bible says in Philippians 4:13 that we can do all things through Christ that strengthens us. Even in times like this, we are encouraged by God’s word that we have that ability in us to succeed with His strength. I pray that each and every one of you receives strength for this course and life generally as we navigate through this pandemic that is shaking our world today. Relax and enjoy the course!

Hi Class,

Please read through the following information on writing a Discussion question response and participation posts.

Contact me if you have any questions.

Important information on Writing a Discussion Question

• Your response needs to be a minimum of 150 words (not including your list of references)
• There needs to be at least TWO references with ONE being a peer reviewed professional journal article.
• Include in-text citations in your response
• Do not include quotes—instead summarize and paraphrase the information
• Follow APA-7th edition
• Points will be deducted if the above is not followed

Participation –replies to your classmates or instructor

• A minimum of 6 responses per week, on at least 3 days of the week.
• Each response needs at least ONE reference with citations—best if it is a peer reviewed journal article
• Each response needs to be at least 75 words in length (does not include your list of references)
• Responses need to be substantive by bringing information to the discussion or further enhance the discussion. Responses of “I agree” or “great post” does not count for the word count.
• Follow APA 7th edition
• Points will be deducted if the above is not followed

• Remember to use and follow APA-7th edition for all weekly assignments, discussion questions, and participation points.
• Here are some helpful links
• The is a great resource