As a master's-level health care practitioner, you may sometimes be tasked with the need to complete a systematic evaluation as a way of improving your organization’s outcomes. In this assessment, you will have a chance to practice these skills by completing a systematic evaluation of a unit, facility, or organization that you are familiar with in an attempt to identify the need to address the economic health care issue that you presented in the previous assessment. This systematic evaluation is often referred to as a needs analysis. Understanding how to do a needs analysis will be key as you advance through your career in the health care environment.
Summarize your chosen economic issue and its impact on your work, organization, colleagues, and community.
Reiterate your rationale for pursuing this issue, as well as the gap contributing to it that you identified in your previous assessment.
Identify any socioeconomic or diversity disparities that exist with how your chosen economic issue impacts any particular groups or populations.
Use at least one piece of evidence to support this disparity (public health data, aggregated data from an organization, or other scholarly resources).
Explain the findings of evidence-based or scholarly sources regarding the need to address your chosen issue and pursue potential change or implementation plans.
For example, if your implementation plan includes the need for increased staffing, you might want to research errors or patient falls that occurred as a result of high patient and low staff ratio in the literature.
Use at least four evidence-based or scholarly sources that are relevant to your chosen topic to support your explanation.
Explain the predicted outcomes and opportunities for growth as the result of the proposed change or implementation plan.
Outcomes and opportunities for growth should focus on economic considerations.
Convey purpose, in an appropriate tone and style, incorporating supporting evidence and adhering to organizational, professional, and scholarly writing standards.
Full Answer Section
Summary of the Economic Issue and Its Impact
The identified healthcare economic issue is the
catastrophic out-of-pocket expenditure (OOPE) incurred by patients in Kisumu County, particularly those living with chronic diseases. These conditions, such as diabetes, hypertension, and HIV/AIDS, necessitate continuous medication, regular diagnostic tests, and frequent clinical consultations. Unlike acute illnesses, the financial burden of chronic disease management is sustained over years, often pushing households into severe financial distress.
This issue profoundly impacts various stakeholders:
- My Work (as a Healthcare Practitioner): I frequently encounter patients who delay or discontinue essential medications, miss follow-up appointments, or forgo crucial diagnostic tests due to financial constraints. This creates an ethical dilemma, as I am often forced to compromise optimal care plans based on affordability rather than clinical necessity. It leads to moral distress, knowing that preventable complications arise from economic barriers.
- My Colleagues: Physicians face challenges in prescribing comprehensive treatment regimens, while pharmacists struggle with patients unable to afford dispensed medications. Nurses and community health volunteers (CHVs) spend considerable time counseling patients on adherence, often finding that financial hardship, not lack of understanding, is the primary impediment. This shared experience contributes to professional burnout and a sense of helplessness within the healthcare team.
- My Organization (e.g., a Public Health Facility in Kisumu): The reliance on OOPE creates an unstable revenue stream, hindering consistent budgeting for supplies, staffing, and infrastructure maintenance. Increased rates of preventable complications and readmissions due to non-adherence strain bed capacity and resources, leading to operational inefficiencies. The facility's ability to meet quality metrics related to chronic disease management is compromised, and its capacity for innovation or investment in preventative programs is limited by the constant pressure of managing acute, often preventable, crises.