HLT 313V All-Week Discussions
Week 1 Topic 1 Discussion 1
Select and profile (a) a high-level job position you aspire to secure in your chosen allied health field and (b) a same-level position in a different and unrelated allied healthcare field. What educational and professional qualifications must each individual in this high-level position possess? What is the typical career path to arrive at each position? Compare and contrast the responsibilities each position entails in regards to workplace safety, risk management, and/or quality of service, and identify one element from each career path that might benefit the other.
Week 1 Topic 1 Discussion 2
Review the biographical sketches of your classmates in this course and select an individual in an allied health career field or position that is different from your own current position or proposed career path. Using your readings, the GCU Library, and Internet association or government websites, identify the safety, risk-management, or quality-based scope of the classmate’s job.
Engage in a dialog with the classmate about whether or not the stated responsibilities are those actually experienced by the individual. How are they the same? How are they different? What “real life” activities in this area does your classmate perform that are not discussed in the official literature? What factors may cause any discrepancies between stated and actual job responsibilities?
A formal risk management plan demonstrates a health care organization’s approach as well as support for risk management and, ultimately, patient safety. Access information from your own employer/organization or using the Internet to find an allied health care organization located in your city or region, and identify the goals and objectives, scope, and functions of an existing risk management plan. How does the plan “measure up” in terms of meeting ethical and legal responsibilities to stakeholders? How might you improve it? Explain.
You are required to use and cite a minimum of two references from the GCU Library to support your response.
Week 2 Topic 2 Discussion 2
Using the GCU Library, locate and summarize an allied health malpractice or negligence case study. If possible, select your chosen field of study. What went wrong?
What workplace safety, risk management, or quality improvement steps were involved? What could have been done differently? If you were in charge of making sure this type of event never occurred again, what steps would you implement into the risk management plan?
You are required to use and cite a minimum of two references from the GCU Library to support your response.
Looking ahead to 2020, pick one area of the current National Patient Safety Goals program and make a prediction of what might change in that area based on
technological or other advancements. Consider patient identification standards, communication processes, and infection control protocols, among others.
You are required to use and cite a minimum of two references to support your response.
Week 3 Topic 3 Discussion 2
The Joint Commission launched the National Patient Safety Goals in 2003. Many years have now passed since the inception of these goals. How has the overall focus of the goals changed in the intervening years? What conditions in the healthcare marketplace have driven the need for change?
You are required to use and cite a minimum of two references to support your response
Week 4 Topic 4 Discussion 1
Locate and select an article which discusses performance-based trends in patient safety, risk management, or quality management in health care organizations. Provide a summary of your findings and explain how and why the trend(s) would or would not be effective or successful in your workplace or in an allied health organization in your chosen field.
You are required to use and cite a minimum of two references from the GCU Library to support your response.
Risk management functions and quality improvement functions in an organization can overlap in terms of addressing patient safety. Using information from your own employer/organization’s risk management plan, or that of an allied health care organization in your city or region, identify and summarize two such functions which commonly overlap in this manner. What common factors lead to the overlap? Does the structure work for the organization you selected? Why or why not?
You are required to use and cite a minimum of two references from the GCU Library to support your response.
Week 5 Topic 5 Discussion 1
Review and summarize the organizational model and structure for your own employer/organization or that of an allied health organization in your chosen field. What features of the model work well and contribute to overall performance of the organization? Which features do not work well, or do not work at all? If you had the authority to do so, what elements of your organizational model would you change, and why?
You are required to use and cite a minimum of two references from the GCU Library to support your response.
Week 5 Topic 5 Discussion 2
The assignment in this topic required you to develop a performance management plan for a hypothetical new allied care organization in your field. What regulatory standards will apply to your organization? What accreditation standards? How will these regulations affect the development of your plan, and what measures will you take to ensure your organization is in compliance?
You are required to use and cite a minimum of two references from the GCU Library to support your response.
