creative thinking

This week you read about the big three settings (primary care, hospitals & long term care) in U.S. health care that interact with and are influenced by many different facets of health care systems: financing, technology, workforce, quality improvement, etc. This week I would like you to do a little creative thinking based on the readings.

Please pick from the lists below a) a geography type; and b) a population. Then you are going to pretend you are representing that population in that geographical area – for example, seniors (65+) in rural Oregon – to advocate for a health care system that best meets their needs.

Based on the information you read in the text (and supplementing from outside resources may be quite helpful here), choose at least one health care delivery setting and use your discussion to advocate for what elements of that setting are most important for your population in that geographical area in relation to your care setting. You can also include what is not a priority to your population. I am not looking for a correct answer, I am looking for you to make the case and explaining what you are saying with evidence to support it.

For example, if my population is seniors in rural Oregon, I might say that in primary care, having access to outpatient long term care as well as mobile primary care could really help serve my population’s needs due to their lack of mobility/access to community resources and their increasing need for health services as they age. I could also talk about how technology can support my population’s primary care needs through the use of telehealth. If I had chosen hospitals as my care setting, I might talk about a concern that hospitals are becoming increasingly for-profit, and my population is likely going to need more hospital services as they get older, and how do we consider the costs in a for-profit vs. community setting with a population where most residents likely live on a fixed income? Your answers will be longer than this (and cited), this is just to get you going. Think about how your population will access care, what types of services they might be most likely to need, what their financial issues might be (if you know), other factors not directly related to but affect accessing care, etc. In your answers, I want you to make sure you are tying your ideas directly to concepts discussed in the text – e.g., technology, workforce, cost, etc.

Choose a geographic area:

1. City of Portland – large urban area 2. Metropolitan county outside of Portland

(Clackamas/Multnomah/Washington/Lane etc.) – smaller urban or suburban area

3. Eastern Oregon – rural/frontier area

 

 

Choose a population:

1. Young children (ages 0-5) 2. School-aged youth (ages 5-21) 3. Non-English speaking Oregonians 4. Seniors (ages 65+) 5. Low-income families 6. Houseless Oregonians

Choose a setting:

1. Primary care 2. Hospitals 3. Long term care

In addition to the prompt, also include:

● In light of the longer prompt for the week, you do not need to include a key concept. Please note that the 2 points usually allocated to key concept discussion will be included in your response to the prompt questions. Because of this, 8 of your 12 points for this discussion post will be based on how completely/thoroughly you respond to the prompt. Please read the directions thoroughly and email me with any questions in advance of the due date.

● At least one question related to the material that you would like to discuss with your team members. Remember, this question does not need to have one, finite answer, however it should be more engaging than a yes/no response. This question is what your team members will be responding to in their forum responses, so be considerate of what is a reasonable, engaging question.

Posts are due by Thursday, 5/9 at 11:59pm. You also have a forum response due this week, you will be responding to at least one of the week 5 forum posts.

Your post should be between 250-500 words, though this week I expect them to be closer to the 500 word end of the range as it would be exceedingly difficult to thoroughly respond to the prompt in less than that. This equates to approximately two pages when double-spaced. Discussions should have a minimum of two references back to the course material and all references must be appropriately cited (APA format) and a reference list provided. You’re welcome to pull in outside material this week as well.