MSN 6011 Unit 5 Discussion Setting Goals for Population Health Improvement

MSN 6011 Unit 5 Discussion Setting Goals for Population Health Improvement

One of the more challenging aspects of designing community
or population health improvement initiatives is setting goals, or outcomes,
that are positive yet attainable. This means that goals should be set at a
level where improvements can be seen and measured, but not so high that
obtaining the goals is an extremely unlikely outcome.

Part of your Unit 6 assignment will require you to gather
and evaluate data about your community and to set goals for a population health
improvement initiative. To help you prepare for this, this discussion will
focus on allowing you time to collect data on your community and receive
feedback on your initial draft of your goals.

The response for this discussion will contain two parts. You
will need to address the bullet points under each part to successfully complete
this discussion.

Part 1: Evaluate Community Data and Identify a Chronic
Health or Epidemiological Issue to Address

Present relevant data about your community.

What is the relevant demographic data for your community?

What does the epidemiological data about your community
suggest are its biggest health concerns?

How do environmental factors in the community contribute or
pose challenges to the health of residence?

Select one health concern that you saw in the data about
your community for which you want to design a health improvement initiative.

Why did you select the health concern that you did?

How do you believe that addressing this health concern will
improve the health of your community?

Part 2: Set Evidence-Based Goals

Create at least two goals, or outcomes, for your health
improvement initiative. For each of the goals, also address the following:

Provide at least one piece of evidence that supports the
relevance and achievability of the goal you created. This could be from a
research study about a similar community health issue, from practice guidelines
or goals from a relevant professional organization, or from other relevant and
credible sources. The idea is to show that the goal you have created is based
upon evidence that suggests it is worthy and achievable.

Briefly explain why the evidence you cited offers relevant
and valuable support for the goal.

Briefly explain why you believe the goal will create
positive health improvements in the community while also being attainable.

Response Guidelines

Review the posts of peers and then select two peers to whom
you would like to respond. In your response be sure to address the following.
Note: Your responses should be substantive and 100-200 words.

Comment on the community health concern that your peer
selected.

Do you agree or disagree that it could be improved through a
population health improvement initiative?

If you have any knowledge or experience with health
improvement initiatives that have attempted to address similar concerns, are
there any insights from those experiences that could help your peer in
designing theirs?

Provide a critique of your peer’s goals by doing the
following for each goal:

Provide a comment on one positive aspect of the goal. For
example, the evidence used to support the goal could be particularly relevant,
or the goal could be clearly worded and fit well into the idea of being
positive yet attainable.

Provide a comment about an area where a goal could be
clarified or revised to make the goal more likely to be attainable while still
leading to health improvements. Alternatively, you could choose to comment on
the evidence if it does not seem to support the goal very well.

Resources

Discussion Participation Scoring Guide.

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.

Lopes Write Policy

For assignments that need to be submitted to Lopes Write, 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.