Population Health Improvement Plan Discussion

Population Health Improvement Plan Discussion

Population Health Improvement Plan Discussion

Write a 4-5 page population health improvement plan, based on your evaluation of the best available evidence from a minimum of 3-5 current scholarly or professional sources of demographic, environmental, and epidemiological data that focuses on your diagnosis of a widespread population health issue.

Part of effectively engaging in evidence-based practice is the ability to synthesize raw health data with research studies and other relevant information in the literature. This will enable you to develop sound interventions, initiatives, and outcomes to address health concerns that you find in data during the course of your practice.

In this assessment, you have an opportunity to evaluate community demographic, environmental, and epidemiological data to diagnose a widespread population health issue, which will be the focus of a health improvement plan that you develop.

Demonstration of Proficiency

By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and assessment criteria:

Competency 2: Apply evidence-based practice to design interventions to improve population health.
Evaluate community demographic, epidemiological, and environmental data to diagnose widespread population health issues.
Develop an ethical health improvement plan to address a population health issue within a community.
Competency 3: Evaluate outcomes of evidence-based interventions.
Propose criteria for evaluating population health improvement plan outcomes.
Competency 4: Evaluate the value and relative weight of available evidence upon which to make a clinical decision.
Justify the value and relevance of evidence used as the basis of a population health improvement plan.
Competency 5: Synthesize evidence-based practice and academic research to communicate effective solutions.
Develop a strategy for communicating with colleagues and members of the community in an ethical, culturally sensitive, and inclusive way.
Integrate relevant and credible sources of evidence to support assertions, correctly formatting citations and references using APA style.
Scenario

Your organization is undertaking a population health improvement initiative focused on one of the pervasive and chronic health concerns in the local community. Examples of health improvement initiatives include nationwide concerns, such as type 2 diabetes, HIV, obesity, insect bites, and Zika. However, your organization has asked you to determine which widespread health concern should be addressed in a population health improvement plan for your community and has entrusted you with gathering and evaluating the relevant data.

Your Role

You are a nurse in a community clinic or hospital and you have a good idea about the most common chronic health issues among its patients. You have been asked to prepare a presentation for the next staff meeting about the issue and the plan that you are proposing to help improve the community’s health.

Instructions

The requirements outlined below correspond to the grading criteria in the scoring guide, so be sure to address each point. In addition, you may want to review the performance-level descriptions for each criterion to see how your work will be assessed.

Part 1: Data Evaluation

Evaluate the outcomes of a population health improvement initiative from community demographic, epidemiological, and environmental data.

Identify the relevant data.
Identify the level of evidence, validity, and reliability for each source.
Describe the major community health concerns suggested by the data.
Explain how environmental factors affect the health of community residents.
Part 2: Health Improvement Plan

Develop a health improvement plan that ethically and effectively addresses the population health concern that you identified in your evaluation of the relevant data.

Base your plan on the best available evidence from a minimum of 3–5 current scholarly or professional sources.
Apply correct APA formatting to all in-text citations and references.
Attach a reference list to your plan.
Ensure that your plan meets the cultural and environmental needs of your community and will likely lead to some improvement in the community’s health related to this concern.
Consider the environmental realities and challenges existing in the community.
Address potential barriers or misunderstandings related to the various cultures prevalent in the community.
Justify the value and relevance of the evidence you used as the basis of your plan.
Explain why the evidence is valuable and relevant to the community health concern you are addressing.
Explain why each piece of evidence is appropriate and informs the goal of improving the health of the community.
Propose relevant and measurable criteria for evaluating the outcomes of your plan.
Explain why your proposed criteria are appropriate and useful measures of success.
Explain how you will communicate with colleagues and members of the community, in an ethical, culturally sensitive, and inclusive way, with regard to the development and implementation of your plan.
Develop a clear communications strategy mindful of the cultural and ethical expectations of colleagues and community members regarding data privacy.
Ensure that your strategy enables you to make complex medical terms and concepts understandable to members of the community, regardless of language, disabilities, or level of education.
The headings for your Evidence-Based Population Health Improvement Plan should be the following:
Data Evaluation.
Meeting Community Needs.
Evidence.
Measuring Outcomes.
Communication Plan.
Additional Requirements

Length:Your recommendation will be 4–5 double-spaced pages, not including title and reference pages.
Font:Times New Roman, 12 points.
APA Format:Your title and reference pages need to conform to APA format and style guidelines. The body of your paper does not need to conform to APA guidelines.Do make sure that it is clear, persuasive, organized, and well written, without grammatical, punctuation, or spelling errors. You also must cite your sources according to APA guidelines.
Scoring Guide:Please review this assessment’s scoring guide to ensure you understand how your faculty member will evaluate your work.
Grading Rubric:

1. Evaluate community demographic, epidemiological, and environmental data to diagnose widespread population health issues.

Passing Grade: Evaluates community demographic, epidemiological, and environmental data to diagnose widespread population health issues. Identifies knowledge gaps, unknowns, missing information, unanswered questions, or areas of uncertainty (where further information could improve the evaluation).

2. Develop an ethical health improvement plan to address a population health issue within a community.

Passing Grade: Develops an ethical health improvement plan to address a population health issue within a community, identifying multiple complementary elements that will sensitively meet a wide variety of community members’ needs.

3. Justify the value and relevance of evidence used as the basis of a population health improvement plan.

Passing Grade: Justifies the value and relevance of evidence used as the basis of a population health improvement plan, and impartially considers conflicting data and other perspectives.

4. Propose criteria for evaluating population health improvement plan outcomes.

Passing Grade: Proposes criteria for evaluating population health improvement plan outcomes, and explains why other possible criteria were considered and rejected.

5. Develop a strategy for communicating with colleagues and community members in an ethical, culturally sensitive, and inclusive way.

Passing Grade: Develops a strategy for communicating with colleagues and community members in an ethical, culturally sensitive, and inclusive way; acknowledges potential difficulties and how those challenges will be met.

6. Write clearly and logically, with correct grammar and mechanics.

Passing Grade: Writes clearly, logically, and persuasively; grammar and mechanics are error-free.

7. Integrate relevant and credible sources of evidence to support assertions, correctly formatting citations and references using APA style.

Passing Grade: Integrates relevant and credible sources of evidence to support assertions, correctly formatting citations and references using APA style. Citations are error-free.

 

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.
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.