Assignment: Underserved Populations

Assignment: Underserved Populations

NOW FOR AN ORIGINAL PAPER ASSIGNMENT:Assignment: Underserved Populations

The plan must identify the needs of the organization as a whole and propose solutions to meet those needs or a way to address the issues.

CASE SCENARIO

Envision two large healthcare facilities that merge resources to better serve their community. This merger is called the Wellness Alliance, and its mission is to establish and manage community health programming that addresses the health needs of the rural, underserved populations in the area. The Wellness Alliance would like to establish pilot clinical sites in five rural areas to promote access and provide health care to these underserved consumers. Each clinical site will have a full-time program manager and three part-time employees (a secretary, a nurse, and a doctor). Each program manager will report to the wellness program coordinator, a newly created position within the Wellness Alliance.

Because you are a community health nurse with extensive experience, you have been appointed as the wellness program coordinator. Your directive is to establish these clinical sites within 3 months and report back in 6 months as to the following: (1) community health programs offered, (2) level of community involvement in outreach health programs and clinical site–based programming, (3) consumer visits made to the clinical site, and (4) personnel performance.

You are excited and challenged, but soon reality sets in: You know that you have five different sites with five different program managers. You need some way to gather the vital information from each of them in a similar manner so that the data are meaningful and useful to you as you develop your reports and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the pilot project. You know that you need a system that will handle all of the pilot project’s information needs.

Your first stop is the  chief information officer  of the health system, a nurse informaticist. You know her from the  health management information system  mini-seminar that she led. After explaining your needs, you share with her the constraint that this system must be in place in 3 months when the sites are up and running before you make your report. When she begins to ask questions, you realize that you do not know the answers.