HP 609 Week 7 Assignment 1: Health Policy Event

Participants

Caroline Buckee
Associate Professor of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Harvey V.Fineberg
President, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and Member, Editorial Board, New England Journal of Medicine; Former President of the U.S. Institute of Medicine (now National Academy of Medicine); Former Provost of Harvard University; and Former Dean of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Eric Rubin
Editor-in-Chief, New England Journal of Medicine; Irene Heinz Given Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Arnold Epstein
John H. Foster Professor of Health Policy and Management; Senior Academic Advisor to the Dean; Chair, Department of Health Policy and Management, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; and Associate Editor, New England Journal of Medicine

Moderator

Jon LaPook
Chief Medical Correspondent, CBS News; Professor of Medicine, NYU Langone Health

Summary

This forum discussed Covid-19 and its effect on the country. In this discussion, several issues were talked about such as treatment options. At the beginning of the pandemic, people were trying every remedy in order to protect themselves from getting sick. Inability to get people into trials to figure out if the interventions are working. Questions on how to open the public back up arose, which included having testing in place, and at least 2 negative test results before heading back to work. More importantly, the participants emphasized communication, especially of any uncertainties. The models should be very clear when answering a specific question so that people are not confused. Most of all, due to the pandemic, it was called a public crisis, medicine clinical case crisis, economic crisis and social crisis. All these combined have greatly affected life as we know it and it will never be the same, so people should adapt to this new life.

Analysis

Life after the Covid-19 outbreak is never going to be the same. Life is beginning to get back to normal, however, it is a different new beginning than what we are looking at. As parts of the world begin to adjust to this new normal, a lot of changes will be noted in our daily lives. There have been a lot of changes when it comes to employment, technology, communication, interaction and socialization.

When the pandemic hit, many businesses were forced to close their doors due to bankruptcy, which in turn led to unemployment. The unemployment rate during this pandemic 13.0 percent. For the few that happened to keep their jobs, 71 percent of those people started working from home (Parker, Horowitz & Minkin, 2021), and now that businesses and offices have been opened back up, 54 percent of the people would still choose not to go back to their workplace and work from home (Parker, Horowitz & Minkin, 2021) and work from home instead. Since the pandemic forced employees to figure out how to work from home and it worked out, they have gotten to a new routine of accomplishing their tasks at home so why the need to go to the office? For a lot of people, working from home is the new life. A life where they do not have to worry about traffic or getting to work late. All work is now completed at home.

Digital Technology also highly contributes to this new way of life. Media sources such as zoom, google meet, skype have been largest utilized by employers, to hold business or staff meetings, doctors using Telehealth and Telemedicine to keep their patients’ appointments, schools to teach their students. Regular people are using digital technology to make appointment, order stuff such as groceries and other consumer goods.

With all these new changes to people’s lives, not only do the people have to adjust in order to move forward, but some people are also having problems such as difficulty using this digital technology. In order to stay on top of their skills and knowledge, classes should be initiated to them how to use the computer, zoom.

Employers should also be flexible in letting their employees to work from home. Since employees have been producing feedback, so it is best the employee to continue to work at locations they are more comfortable than being forced back to the office and produce no results. Arise in e-learning has been more appreciated (Li & Lalani, 2020) leading to more digital learning and teaching staff resorting to online programs.

As the country moves forward, most of these implementations from during the pandemic era should be carried a lot. Digital technology, working from home, e-learning and many more. These ideas were introduced and proved to work when they were needed to, therefore they should be permanently implemented.

Important information for writing discussion questions and participation

Welcome to class

Hello class and welcome to the class and I will be your instructor for this course. This is a -week course and requires a lot of time commitment, organization, and a high level of dedication. Please use the class syllabus to guide you through all the assignments required for the course. I have also attached the classroom policies to this announcement to know your expectations for this course. Please review this document carefully and ask me any questions if you do. You could email me at any time or send me a message via the “message” icon in halo if you need to contact me. I check my email regularly, so you should get a response within 24 hours. If you have not heard from me within 24 hours and need to contact me urgently, please send a follow up text to

I strongly encourage that you do not wait until the very last minute to complete your assignments. Your assignments in weeks 4 and 5 require early planning as you would need to present a teaching plan and interview a community health provider. I advise you look at the requirements for these assignments at the beginning of the course and plan accordingly. I have posted the YouTube link that explains all the class assignments in detail. It is required that you watch this 32-minute video as the assignments from week 3 through 5 require that you follow the instructions to the letter to succeed. Failure to complete these assignments according to instructions might lead to a zero. After watching the video, please schedule a one-on-one with me to discuss your topic for your project by the second week of class. Use this link to schedule a 15-minute session. Please, call me at the time of your appointment on my number. Please note that I will NOT call you.

Please, be advised I do NOT accept any assignments by email. If you are having technical issues with uploading an assignment, contact the technical department and inform me of the issue. If you have any issues that would prevent you from getting your assignments to me by the deadline, please inform me to request a possible extension. Note that working fulltime or overtime is no excuse for late assignments. There is a 5%-point deduction for every day your assignment is late. This only applies to approved extensions. Late assignments will not be accepted.

If you think you would be needing accommodations due to any reasons, please contact the appropriate department to request accommodations.

Plagiarism is highly prohibited. Please ensure you are citing your sources correctly using APA 7th edition. All assignments including discussion posts should be formatted in APA with the appropriate spacing, font, margin, and indents. Any papers not well formatted would be returned back to you, hence, I advise you review APA formatting style. I have attached a sample paper in APA format and will also post sample discussion responses in subsequent announcements.

Your initial discussion post should be a minimum of 200 words and response posts should be a minimum of 150 words. Be advised that I grade based on quality and not necessarily the number of words you post. A minimum of TWO references should be used for your initial post. For your response post, you do not need references as personal experiences would count as response posts. If you however cite anything from the literature for your response post, it is required that you cite your reference. You should include a minimum of THREE references for papers in this course. Please note that references should be no more than 5 years old except recommended as a resource for the class. Furthermore, for each discussion board question, you need ONE initial substantive response and TWO substantive responses to either your classmates or your instructor for a total of THREE responses. There are TWO discussion questions each week, hence, you need a total minimum of SIX discussion posts for each week. I usually post a discussion question each week. You could also respond to these as it would count towards your required SIX discussion posts for the week.

I understand this is a lot of information to cover in 5 weeks, however, the Bible says in Philippians 4:13 that we can do all things through Christ that strengthens us. Even in times like this, we are encouraged by God’s word that we have that ability in us to succeed with His strength. I pray that each and every one of you receives strength for this course and life generally as we navigate through this pandemic that is shaking our world today. Relax and enjoy the course!

Hi Class,

Please read through the following information on writing a Discussion question response and participation posts.

Contact me if you have any questions.

Important information on Writing a Discussion Question

• Your response needs to be a minimum of 150 words (not including your list of references)
• There needs to be at least TWO references with ONE being a peer reviewed professional journal article.
• Include in-text citations in your response
• Do not include quotes—instead summarize and paraphrase the information
• Follow APA-7th edition
• Points will be deducted if the above is not followed

Participation –replies to your classmates or instructor

• A minimum of 6 responses per week, on at least 3 days of the week.
• Each response needs at least ONE reference with citations—best if it is a peer reviewed journal article
• Each response needs to be at least 75 words in length (does not include your list of references)
• Responses need to be substantive by bringing information to the discussion or further enhance the discussion. Responses of “I agree” or “great post” does not count for the word count.
• Follow APA 7th edition
• Points will be deducted if the above is not followed

• Remember to use and follow APA-7th edition for all weekly assignments, discussion questions, and participation points.
• Here are some helpful links
• The is a great resource

Li, C., & Lalani, F. (2020, April 29). The COVID-19 pandemic has changed education forever. This is how. World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/coronavirus-education-global-covid19-online-digital-learning/.

Parker, K., Horowitz, J. M., & Minkin, R. (2021, May 25). How Coronavirus Has Changed the Way Americans Work. Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends Project. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/12/09/how-the-coronavirus-outbreak-has-and-hasnt-changed-the-way-americans-work/.

Week 7 Assignment 1: Health Policy Event