HLT 308 Risks Management and Health Care Regulations
HLT308 All Weeks Discussions (October 2019)
HLT 308 Risks Management and Health Care Regulations

Week 1 Discussion

DQ1 Explain the role of accreditation in mitigating risk compliance issues. Provide an example of a health care organization that was placed on probation by its accrediting body or by CMS within the last 3 years for a risk compliance issue. What caused the probation or loss of accreditation and how could it have been prevented?

DQ2 Briefly describe how the risk management program at the organization where you work (or at that of a typical health care organization) addresses social media and patient information privacy. Provide three examples of risk management steps your health care organization (or another health care organization) could take to further protect patient information. Support your analysis with a minimum of one peer-reviewed reference.

HLT 308 Risks Management and Health Care Regulations

Week 2 Discussion

DQ1 With the growing importance of increasing wage rates for employees, many health care organizations are implementing technology such as self-help kiosks to reduce staffing. Describe both an advantage and a disadvantage to this practice and discuss how patients may perceive reductions in dedicated staffing.

DQ2 Research the role of an administrator versus that of a nonmanagement staff member in dealing with a workers’ compensation incident in a typical health care organization. What are the minimal responsibilities and reporting duties for each? What recommendations would you suggest for improving organizational compliance with regulatory requirements at the staff level? Support your analysis with a minimum of one peer-reviewed reference.

HLT 308 Risks Management and Health Care Regulations

Week 3 Discussion

DQ1 The Patient Self-Determination Act (PSDA) was implemented to allow patients to state “Do Not Resuscitate” (DNS), or to assign a surrogate decision maker in the event that the individual is unable to make the decision. What relationship does an ethics committee have in enforcing the advance directives of the patients in their care? Support your analysis with a minimum of one peer-reviewed article.

DQ2 The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) publishes a list of health care-acquired conditions (HACs) that reasonably could have been prevented through the application of risk management strategies. What actions has your health care organization (or have health care organizations in general) implemented to manage or prevent these “never events” from happening within their health care facilities? Support your response with a minimum two peer-reviewed articles.

HLT 308 Risks Management and Health Care Regulations

Week 4 Discussion

DQ1 Describe one of the safety committees your organization uses and how it reduces risk within your organization. Who are the general members of the group, how often do they meet, and is there a regulatory requirement that they report or publish notes? Is this a good use of the staff’s time or would another method that still addresses the safety goal of this group be more efficient?

DQ2 The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS), and the Joint Commission (JC) require that health care organizations maintain risk management programs to address infection control. Detail three measures that your health care organization (or any health care organization) could implement, beyond what is currently in practice, to support the delivery of safe health care services and avoid the spread of infection (e.g., placing hand washing devices at all of the public entrances of the health care facility). Support your response with a minimum of two peer-reviewed references.

HLT 308 Risks Management and Health Care Regulations

Week 5 Discussion

DQ1 Health care organizations continually face challenges from various regulatory and government agencies while also being bound by Managed Care Organization (MCO) standards. View the video located in the study materials entitled “College of Nursing and Health Care Professions: Do We Know What Our Future Is?” for insight into the challenges of health care reform. Based on the video, describe two key reform factors that you believe will need to be addressed by future health care workers or leaders and explain why. (Note: You can download slides from this video for ease of review in developing your forum response). Additionally, what role does adherence to MCO standards play in your future health care vision?

DQ2 The Affordable Care Act (ACA) identifies requirements related to provider compliance with fraud, waste, and abuse laws that have been enacted to protect consumers. Research three of these requirements and describe the corresponding measures that your health care organization has initiated, or could initiate, to comply with the ACA. Support your analysis with a minimum of two peer-reviewed articles.

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.