The Primary Care Clinic

The Primary Care Clinic

The Primary Care Clinic

You are the manager of a new primary care clinic located about twenty five (25) miles outside of a small city (population of 50,000). With five (5) family physicians, two (2) nurse practitioners, two (2) physicians’ assistants (PAs), and twenty (20) clinical support staff consisting of RNs, LPNs, and CMAs, the clinic provides primary care services to a diverse community of people living and working outside the city limits. Originally a rural area, the community has been growing and now includes promising opportunities in employment, education, and comfortable living spaces for young families. However, there are still many residents who struggle to make ends meet with older farms that have belonged to families for generations.

The central city includes two (2) large acute care facilities, and one (1) tertiary care facility that is known for its excellent pulmonary care. Both acute care hospitals provide the usual services such as labor and delivery, outpatient surgery, chronic diseases care, etc. and have fully equipped ancillary departments, such as lab and radiology. Up until this point, the residents have used the facilities’ emergency departments for routine illnesses and conditions when their private physicians were not readily available.

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.
2. Create a comprehensive mission statement for the clinic, and discuss how it will facilitate the provision of quality services.
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.
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.
5. Determine how you would then address whatever opportunities for improvement seem to exist and what processes you would put in place.
6. Use at least three (3) quality resources in this assignment. Note: Wikipedia and similar Websites do not qualify as quality resources.
   1. Format your assignment according to the following formatting requirements:
      1. Typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides.
      2. Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student’s name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The cover page is not included in the required page length.
      3. Include a reference page. Citations and references must follow APA format. The reference page is not included in the required page length.
7. The specific course learning outcomes associated with this assignment are:
   • Analyze the critical management issues, purpose, functions, and performance measures of different departments within healthcare organizations.
   • Examine the political, economic, and social forces that have influenced the organizational foundations of the United States healthcare system.
   • Explain how public policy has shaped the development of the U.S. healthcare system.
   • Use technology and information resources to research issues in health services organization management.
   • Write clearly and concisely about health services organization management using proper writing mechanics.

You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.

ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS

Discussion Questions (DQ)

Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.

Weekly Participation

Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.

APA Format and Writing Quality

Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.

Use of Direct Quotes

I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.
As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.

LopesWrite Policy

For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.

Late Policy

The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading. The Primary Care Clinic

Communication

Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me:
Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.