HS 200 Understanding Health & Illness
Final Exam: ‘Take-Home’Term Paper
OUTLINE
Grade: 70 Marks
30% of Final Grade
DUE:
Like any industry, healthcare organizations need to make continual adjustments to maintain
optimum functionality. Fortunately, there are several methods that can be used to determine the
areas where adjustments can be made.
One essential method known as SWOT analysis has not been put into use in healthcare often
enough. A SWOT analysis allows for the assessment of an organization from a neutral
perspective through a detailed discussion of the organization’s strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities and threats.
For your term paper, choose a healthcare organization in Saskatchewan to conduct your own
SWOT analysis. Following this, compile, analyze and evaluate the significant influences that
work for or against the organization. For the analysis, include detail about where certain key
models, theories concepts and approaches we have learned in class will fit as a strength,
weakness, opportunity, and/or threat. A more detailed outline is provided below.
______________________________________________________________________________
PART 1: BACKGROUND TO THE ORGANIZATION AND DESCRIPTION OF THE
HEALTH ISSUE (1-2 PAGES) (20 Marks)
– What are some interesting facts about the company (Hint: you will likely have to contact
someone at the organization you are researching)?
o # of employees, target population/community/types of clients
o Location of the organization; when was it established?
o What is the organization known for? Mandates, purpose, services and programsLast updated: 05/04/2018
o How is the organization funded?
– What is the company’s vision, mission, and/or value statement?
– Are there similar organizations in the same community, city or province?
– Provide a brief description of the magnitude of the health issue(s) the organization is striving
to improve.
PART 2: NARRATIVE SWOT ANALYSIS OF THE ORGANIZATION (2-3 pages) (50
Marks)
Strengths: identify and describe what you think are the organization’s strengths. Examples
could include strengths relating to the size of the organization, financial resources, location or
proximity to their target group, evaluated programs and services that have shown success on
specific health outcome measures.
Weaknesses: Describe the things that you consider to be weaknesses (i.e., puts the organization
at a disadvantage to others). Weaknesses could include the absence of interventions that aren’t
evidenced-informed or have the most effective approach to achieving their outcomes.
Opportunities: Describe the possible external opportunities for the organization. These are not
the same as your internal strengths, and are not necessarily definite – an opportunity for one
aspect of the organization could be a threat to another. You will have to examine the literature if
you are suggesting new approaches, programs or services.
Threats: Describe external factors that could be a threat or cause a problem for the organization.
Examples include, economic shifts, adverse changes in funding or financial resources, potential
government regulations, shift in demand, cost-benefit or cost-effectiveness.
______________________________________________________________________________
Your analysis should include a description of examples of some of the key learnings in the
course as a strength, weakness, opportunity or threat:
Key Learnings:
– Biomedical Model
– Health Systems/Health Integration
– Evidence-Informed Decision Making
– Population Health
o Shifting the Curve
o Population Health Promotion Model
o Health Impact Pyramid
– Health In All Policies
– Health Inequality
– Social Determinants of Health
___________________________________________________________________________
TERM PAPER GUIDELINES
Create a title page that includes your name, student ID, date of submission, course code,
and instructor’s name (Tom Martin)
Answer all questions listed above. Each answer should involve several sentences/short
paragraph(s).The points awarded for each question follow the question in brackets
Your written assignment should be 4-5 pages in length, typed double-spaced with 1”
margins, size 12 point Times New Roman font. Please do not re-type the questions.
Marks will be deducted for spelling and grammatical errors
SUBMITTING THE TERM PAPER
You must submit your assignment electronically via Turnitin through UR Courses
Please name your files as follows: LastnameFirstname-HS200 TermPaper (main file)
Strengths:
– What advantages does the organization have?
– What do they do better than anyone else?
– What unique or lowest-cost resources do they draw upon that others
can’t?
– What do their clients/patients see as their strengths?
– What factors increase registrations, interest, and uptake?
Consider strengths from both an internal perspective, and from the point of view
from clients/customers/patients (target market)
If you are having a hard time, write done some of the characteristics of the
organization – these could be strengths
When looking at strengths, think about them in relation to organisations that
offer similar programs/services. For example, if everyone provides a high quality
program or service, that service isn’t considered a strength.
Weaknesses:
– What could they improve?
– What could they avoid?
– What are their clients likely to see as weaknesses?
– What factors decrease interest?
Consider this from an internal and external perspective: Do other people seem to
perceive weaknesses that the organization doesn’t see?
Opportunities:
– What good opportunities can you spot?
– What interesting trends are you aware of?
Useful opportunities can come from such things as:
– Changes in program approach (Health Impact Pyramid)
– Changes in effectiveness of program (review of the literature)
– Changes in government policy related to the field (new laws, programs,
services)
– Changes in social patterns, population profiles, lifestyle changes, and so on
– Local EventsTip: An effective approach when looking at opportunities is to look at your
strengths and ask yourself whether these open up any opportunities. Alternatively,
look at the company’s weaknesses and ask yourself whether they could create
opportunities by eliminating them
Threats:
– What obstacles does the company face?
– What are the ‘competitors’ doing?
– Are quality standards or specifications for the job, services, products
changing?
– Is changing technology threatening the organization’s position?
– Does the organization have poor funding, a lot of debt, not gaining value
from the services they are delivering?
– Could any of the weaknesses threaten the organization?
Tip: don’t overlook external factors, such as government regulations, or
technological changes with respect to the health issue.
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