Community Relationships and the Health Service Coordinator

SCENARIO
You are employed as a healthcare service coordinator (HSC) in an urban hospital located within a community with considerable racial and socioeconomic diversity. The demographics of the community include over 60% African American residents, over one-third of households living in poverty, and about 10% of the population who speaks a language other than English. There is an extensive history of mistrust of the medical community by many African American residents. The city includes pockets of significant poverty next to pockets of affluence. There is a difference in life expectancy of up to 20 years between different neighborhoods. The HSCs serving this community through the hospital face a high prevalence of homelessness, infant mortality, and drug abuse, particularly heroin. The chronic disease rates among the hospital’s community are high, particularly the rates for heart disease, cancer, stroke, and HIV.
The city’s health department conducts an annual community health assessment, which further verifies these disparities and the rates of high chronic disease observed by the staff of the hospital. The hospital leadership and staff have vowed to assist the neighboring community in decreasing these rates over the next decade. The hope is that this will positively affect health outcomes for the hospital’s patients.
As an HSC at the hospital, you have been assigned to work with an interprofessional team of hospital employees to develop strategies to identify and reduce the prevalence of chronic disease within the community. This team consists of physicians, nurse practitioners, nurses, social workers, chaplains, child life specialists, physical and occupational therapists, aides, and other HSCs. The expectation from leadership is a narrative proposal, which will demonstrate the collaboration and leadership of the interprofessional team and describe an approach to address the problem.
Note: This scenario is modeled on the University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC) in Baltimore, Maryland. If you feel additional information about the organization and community is needed to fulfill the requirements, refer to the “University of Maryland Medical Center” or “Baltimore City Health Department” websites in the Web Links section below.
REQUIREMENTS
Your submission must be your original work. No more than a combined total of 30% of the submission and no more than a 10% match to any one individual source can be directly quoted or closely paraphrased from sources, even if cited correctly. The originality report that is provided when you submit your task can be used as a guide.
You must use the rubric to direct the creation of your submission because it provides detailed criteria that will be used to evaluate your work. Each requirement below may be evaluated by more than one rubric aspect. The rubric aspect titles may contain hyperlinks to relevant portions of the course.
A. Discuss how to positively affect the health and behavioral health outcomes of the community described in the scenario by applying two sociopolitical drivers at each of the following levels:
• micro
• mezzo
• macro
B. Discuss how to develop strategic partnerships between the organization (i.e., the hospital) and the community in the scenario by doing the following:
1. Identify two new and innovative community relationships, one with a strategic partner and one with an organizational stakeholder, that could benefit the organization and community from the scenario.
a. Describe how the relationships identified in part B1 can be applied to the scenario to advance the needs of the organization and community.
2. Describe one policy and one procedure that could be implemented within the context of the scenario to advance the goals of the organization.
3. Describe how the expressed dynamics of diversity in the identified community population from the scenario could be harnessed to positively affect health and behavioral health outcomes for this population.
C. Discuss the application of an interprofessional team to the scenario by doing the following:
1. Describe three distinct strategies: one to develop a culturally diverse interprofessional team, one to manage a culturally diverse interprofessional team, and one to foster the collaboration of a culturally diverse interprofessional team.
2. Describe two professional development strategies that could be applied to benefit interprofessional team collaboration when engaging in group work to assist the community identified in the scenario.
3. Apply critical thinking and strategic decision-making to determine two solutions to the problem presented in the scenario.
4. Describe one verbal and one nonverbal communication strategy or technique that could be used within the scenario to address barriers to healthcare access for the identified community.
D. Discuss the application of performance development strategies to the scenario by doing the following:
1. Describe two strategies to increase the organization’s employee engagement around the community problem described in the scenario.
2. escribe two organizational structures that could be put in place to encourage professional development opportunities for the organization’s staff that would systemically support the needs of the community identified in the scenario.
3. Identify three dynamics of professional behavior and etiquette in relation to the scenario and modeled within each of the following contexts:
• one personal context
• one organizational context
• one industry context
a. Describe how the identified dynamics from part D3 could be applied to the scenario to improve outcomes for the interprofessional team and community population.
4. Identify three personal values and perspectives you would hold as an HSC professional to support the interprofessional team, organization, and community identified in the scenario.
a. Describe how the personal values and perspectives from part D4 could be applied to engage yourself as a leader within the healthcare field.
b. Describe how the personal values and perspectives from part D4 could be applied to engage community partners in the context of the scenario.
E. Acknowledge sources, using APA-formatted in-text citations and references, for content that is quoted, paraphrased, or summarized.
F. Demonstrate professional communication in the content and presentation of your submission.