Essay 4: Local health care delivery system.

The discussion board is aligned with the module objective “Develop the implementation of population-focused care through the nursing process, collaboration, and interdisciplinary skills.” After completing the assigned reading for module 4, consider the healthcare delivery system in your community.

As part of the discussion you will:

· Examine the strengths and weaknesses of your local health care delivery system.

Locate your local health department. If you live in a small community, look in the county seat. You may find the information online, or you may need to visit. Include the following information in your initial post: (Do not copy and paste directly from the website – Use your own words)

· Name of health department, location (address), phone number

· Mission of the health department

· Brief history of the health department

· Name and credentials of the health commissioner

· Describe the services provided by the health department

· Description of the role of the public health nurse in community health

· Description of the health department’s emergency planning components

· What health services are not provided that the student believes should be added

Your initial post must be posted before you can view and respond to colleagues, must contain minimum of two (2) references, in addition to examples from your personal experiences to augment the topic. The goal is to make your post interesting and engaging so others will want to read/respond to it. Synthesize and summarize from your resources in order to avoid the use of direct quotes, which can often be dry and boring. No direct quotes are allowed in the discussion board posts.

Post a thoughtful response to at least two (2) other colleagues’ initial postings. Responses to colleagues should be supportive and helpful (examples of an acceptable comment are: “This is interesting – in my practice, we treated or resolved (diagnosis or issue) with (x, y, z meds, theory, management principle) and according to the literature…” and add supportive reference. Avoid comments such as “I agree” or “good comment.”

Points: 30

Due Dates:

· Initial Post: Fri, Sep 17 by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST) of the US.

· Response Post: Sun, Sep 19 by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST) of the US – (the response posts cannot be done on the same day as the initial post).

References:

· Initial Post: Minimum of two (2) total references: one (1) from required course materials and one (1) from peer-reviewed references.

· Response posts: Minimum of one (1) total reference: one (1) from peer-reviewed or course materials reference per response.

Words Limits

· Initial Post: Minimum 200 words excluding references (approximately one (1) page)

· Response posts: Minimum 100 words excluding references.

Note: Since it is difficult to edit the APA reference in the Blackboard discussion area, you can copy and paste APA references from your Word document to the Blackboard discussion area. Points will not be deducted because of format changes in spacing.

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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.