As a health care administrator, you will be accountable to many people, including employees, patients and their families, the executive board, and the agencies that monitor the organization’s behavior. There may be times when your obligations conflict with each other. What is the best way to approach these conflicts? How can you be sure that you are serving the needs of both patients and the organizations for which you work, while exhibiting professionalism and moral courage?

reflect on your responsibilities as a health care administrator and examine the importance of moral courage in performing well in that role.

To Prepare for this Assignment:

Take the ACHE Ethics Self-Assessment (see your Learning Resources). Review your scores. Consider what these results tell you about your ability to effectively work with ethical and professional challenges in your role as a health care administrator. Think about what these results say about your ability to exhibit moral courage in the face of these challenges.

The Assignment

Op-Ed piece to be published in a newspaper about what you think moral courage means in your role as a health care administrator. (Review the Learning Resources this week that provide information about how to write an effective Op-Ed piece.)

Include the following in your Op-Ed:

• The importance of an administrator to exhibit moral courage
• The effects on others in an organization if an administrator models ethical and legal behavior or, on the contrary, illegal or unethical behavior

Project: Final Project — Select a TopicPart 1: Select Policymaker and Topic

For the Final Project Part 1, you will conduct extensive research that is focused, current, and most important, accurate. Select a policy that has been enacted into law within the last year or a current Bill that is in the policy development process. The aim of this project is for you to explore the legal, ethical, and policy implications of your selected health care policy issue.

Note: In grading the Final Project, your Instructor uses a Final Project Rubric. Review the rubric prior to completing your Project Component.

All rubrics can also be found in the Course Information area in the course navigation menu.

The Assignment ()

• Identify a policymaker in your area. This could be a member of the U.S. Congress from your state of residence, a state represented or other elected official or an equivalent legislative person that you identify if you are from a territory. If you are an international student, you may choose any policymaker in your area who is responsible for enacting health care policy or laws. Provide the name, title, contact information, and web page if available. Also, explain why you selected this policymaker.
• Select a health care policy issue of interest that the policymaker you selected supports or opposes. This will be the topic of your Final Project. Feel free to use media resources regarding the issue in order to increase your understanding of how a policy or law can impact the health care issue. Provide a short summary of the health care policy issue you selected.

Project: Final Project — Legal and Ethical FoundationsPart 2: Ethical and Legal Foundations

As part of the Final Project, you will provide an analysis of the ethical and legal foundations of the health care policy issue you selected.

Note: In grading the Final Project, your Instructor uses a Final Project Rubric. Review the rubric prior to completing your Project Component.

All rubrics can also be found in the Course Information area in the course navigation menu.

The Assignment

Provide an analysis of the ethical and legal foundations of the health care policy issue you selected. Use ethics terms, theories and apply what you have studied in prior weeks. Explain what the ethical issue(s) are, and present the pro and con ethical positions surrounding the health care policy issue. Then, explain what the legal issue is, and present the pro and con legal positions surrounding the health care policy issue. Finally, apply your critical thinking and analysis skills by suggesting two recommendations to the policymaker and/or stakeholder that align with your own position on the ethical and legal issues. Use of supporting references is essential

Add Part 2 onto your file document from Part 1 and label it with a header identifying Part 2. You will submit a cumulative paper that combines both parts. Only Part 2 will be graded this week.

Project: Final Project — Health Care PolicyPart 3: Health Care Policy

For Part 3 of the Final Project, you will provide an analysis of the policy issues surrounding the health care policy issue you selected. This requires significant research of policy analysis and economic, business, consumer and other policy factors related to your selected policy.

Note: In grading the Final Project Part 3, your Instructor uses a Final Project Rubric. Review the rubric prior to completing your Project Component.

All rubrics can also be found in the Course Information area in the course navigation menu.

The Assignment

For this component of your Final Project, describe how the health care policy issue you selected is related to policymaking from different broad perspectives, including social, economic, business, and cultural. Include this assignment labeled as Part 3 with a header in your combined file. Submit your cumulative file with Parts 1, 2, & 3 included. Only Part 3 will be graded this week.

Assignment: Analyzing Policies From Diverse Perspectives

Whether a health care policy was formulated at the federal (country); state (providence or regional); or local level, policies inevitably have considerable impact on local health care organizations, communities, and relevant stakeholders. In other words, a health care policy that has far-reaching relevance to the nation, state, or region ultimately impacts the grassroots interests and concerns of the community.

To complete the Assignment, select a recent (within the last 5 years) health care policy that has had substantial impact on consumers. In particular, look at a high-impact health care policy to analyze the diverse and divergent perspectives that informed its development and then assess its impact at the local organizational level.

Detailed and current information on health care policy may be found on many websites, including the following:

• American Hospital Association (AHA)
• Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)
• The Kaiser Family Foundation
• Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF)
• American Public Health Association (APHA)
• American Association of Retired Persons (AARP)

After choosing a health care policy, select a local health care organization that is impacted by that policy. This might be a public agency, a health care facility, or any organization substantially influenced by the policy. It also might be the health care organization in which you work. As an administrator in this organization, you have been tasked with preparing an assessment of the impact of the policy on the organization’s operations and outcomes. This task requires you to take a large and complex topic (the policy) and synthesize it into digestible information that organizational stakeholders can strategically use to address issues raised by the policy.

For Part 1 of this assessment, you will develop PowerPoint presentation that explains key points related to the health care policy you selected. This presentation is designed to inform and precede the dissemination of an in-depth policy assessment regarding the impact of the policy on the organization.

For Part 2, you will develop in-depth policy assessment that synthesizes the impact of the health care policy on the organization.

Part 1: PowerPoint Presentation: Key Points of a Health Care Policy

Succinct but accurate dissemination of information is often a key responsibility of a health care administrator, and understanding current changes in health care policy is an important need for many stakeholders within an organization.

For this Assignment, assume the role of a health care administrator and develop PowerPoint presentation to provide stakeholders within the organization foundational information about the policy you selected. In particular, focus on the formulation of the policy and the diverse perspectives of those who had a role in its development. As noted previously, this presentation is designed to inform the subsequent policy assessment you will distribute.

In a 12- to 15-slide PowerPoint presentation:

• Briefly describe the issue addressed by the policy as well as the background of the policy’s formulation.
• Identify key stakeholders involved in the evolution of this policy. Briefly explain the overarching perspectives of these stakeholders with regard to the policy.
• Define which of the stakeholders would be considered advocacy groups and which would be classified as business interests. Explain how you differentiate the two categories and why this differentiation matters.
• Explain the impact of the policy on key stakeholders (not necessarily within the organization). For example, how does the policy impact consumers? A health care organization? An insurance company? Providers?
• Explain the role of various government agencies and officials, including public health agencies, in the formulation and implementation of the policy.
• Explain the ongoing role of law and regulation in the formulation and implementation of the policy.

Part 2: Policy Assessment

Once organizational stakeholders have been given foundational and critical information about the health care policy, you will provide them with a succinct, in-depth assessment of the impact of the policy on the organization.

In a 2- to 3- executive summary:

• Briefly discuss the relevance of the policy to the organization.
• Explain areas within the organization that will be affected by the policy.
• Identify key organizational stakeholders impacted by this policy. Explain how they will be affected.
• Assess any community impact that will need to be taken into consideration.
• Describe the expected impact of the policy on organizational outcomes.

Project: Submit Your Final ProjectPart 4: Letter to a Policymaker

The last component, Part 4, of your Final Project is to develop letter to the policymaker that focuses on your support or opposition to a health care policy issue you select. Your letter should be written in a respectful tone and focus on the evidence supporting your position, rather than merely expressing your personal thoughts and opinions. You should provide evidence from the peer-reviewed literature to support your position and utilize information from Components 2 and 3. Refer back to your work in Parts 1, 2 and 3 to make a compelling argument in your letter. Be sure to include your chosen elected official’s actual address and use the correct salutation that is used for your elected official’s position. Label your letter as Part 4: Appendix A and add it as the fourth and final part of your cumulative course project assignment.

All rubrics can also be found in the Course Information area in the course navigation menu.

The Assignment

You will submit your Part 4 Final Project as Part 4: Appendix A and add it to your cumulative assignment document. Your instructor will grade only Part 4 for this week but all four parts must be submitted as one unified file in