Assignment:Management in the Aged Care Sector

Enhancing Leadership and Management in the Aged Care Sector – Health Project Management

Scenario

Option 1: National Disability Insurance Scheme The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is a healthcare program established by the Australian Government in 2013 with the establishment of legislation – National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013. The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is the new way of providing support for Australians (and their families and carers) with a disability. As an insurance scheme, the NDIS takes a lifetime approach, investing in people with disability early to improve their outcomes later in life. For this iBrief task, you are asked to develop a comprehensive brief explaining the NDIS and associated broader disability reforms that are occurring in Australia; including a detailed outline and assessment of how the NDIS is funded (including an explanation of how this is an insurance scheme); and make your own assessment on the effectiveness of the implementation timetable for the scheme in Australia.

Option 2: Outcomes Funding Mechanisms At a recent presentation, the Director General for Health set out that there needs to be a renewed focus and understanding on the future of clinical outcomes funding mechanisms. Health organisations and facilities (in all three sectors: public, private and NGO) may receive funding based on single or multiple criteria such as activity, service type, case mix etc.

Assignment:Management in the Aged Care Sector

Assignment:Management in the Aged Care Sector

In this brief you are asked to prepare an overview defining and describing clinical outcomes funding models or approaches; where fully or in part, clinical outcomes are used at present nationally and internationally; and what are the key system, service settings, research and operational issues that need to be considered around implementing funding or payment allocations using clinical outcomes as a driver in those funding mechanisms.

Option 3: Technology and Procurement Strategies In health services the term ‘technology’ can refer to a range of things including biomedical equipment; drug and pharma therapies; models of care; medical and surgical procedures etc. A significant part of the costs and health economics of health system is major capital technology – technology that has high individual unit cost; has a long lifecycle; generally refers to plant and equipment used in health service delivery.

In this brief you should research and summarise an agreed understanding of what is major capital technology and what are the optimal health technology management strategies used throughout the world. From your research develop an effective planning, procurement and management outline (or approach) for optimal management of major capital technology in health organisations and health services.

Option 4: Primary Health Care and Specialist Referrals One of the key patient/client care clinical management systems in any health system is the referral of patients from primary care practitioners (e.g. general practitioners) to specialist practitioners and services (e.g. consultant specialists) in public hospitals. There are many strengths and shortcomings in this model of care. As populations’ growth; as specialised and sub-specialised services emerge; as clinical subsidiarity changes; as the need and demand for 2 nd opinions occur, it is useful to look at what alternatives or modifications of this primary and tertiary referral system might undergo into the future.

The Director General for Health has asked you for a brief on changes, developments and alternatives to this system of referral and management of specialist opinion, services and management. In your brief you should consider developed and developing alterative models of referral across the world and what program of reform you would recommend in the context of cost, quality, workforce and system integration issues.

Option 5: Health Accreditation to National Standards Health service accreditation (the external independent peer review assessment of an organisation’s level of performance to standards [ACHS]) is recognised as an important quality assurance and quality improvement approach in health and aged care. The establishment of sets of standards (publication of desired and achievable levels of performance and activity) that form the basis of these processes may either be developed or maintained by government or by other professional or qualified organisations and agencies.

Provide a brief on the current state of the use of standards in health care systems across the world. In your brief you should set out who owns and maintains the standards in each health system; similarities or otherwise of standards used in various health systems; information about the reported strengths and weaknesses of both the standards approach and the current standards in use.

The purpose of this brief is to provide a contemporary understanding of the use and effectiveness of standards in driving quality in health systems throughout the world. In your brief you should either focus on standards in the health care or aged care sectors but not both.

Question:
Your task is to develop a national level strategy that summarises the literature both in Australia and overseas on frameworks for effective management and leadership in this sector and takes into account relevant regulation, legislation and funding.

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.