- Prepare a presentation of the policy proposal you developed in Assessment 2 for one of the stakeholder groups identified in your proposal. Inform the group about the future of organizational policy and practices, the current performance shortfalls, and the rationale for why the new policy and practices are needed. In addition, explain how the group will benefit from this change in order to obtain their buy-in and support.
Note: Each assessment in this course builds on the work you completed in the previous assessment. Therefore, you must complete the assessments in this course in the order in which they are presented.
An important aspect of change leadership is the ability to address diverse groups of stakeholders and create buy-in and support for your ideas and proposals for change. This assessment provides you with an opportunity to demonstrate and hone these skills.
By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and assessment criteria:
- Competency 1: Analyze the effects of health care policies, laws, and regulations on organizations, interprofessional teams, and personal practice.
- Explain how a proposed change in institutional policy or practice guidelines related to an existing health care policy or law would affect a stakeholder group.
- Competency 3: Lead the development and implementation of ethical and culturally sensitive policies that improve health outcomes for individuals, organizations, and populations.
- Propose an institutional policy or practice guidelines related to an existing local, state, or federal health care policy or law.
- Explain how proposed change in policy or practice guidelines would improve the quality of work and outcomes for a particular stakeholder group.
- Competency 4: Evaluate relevant indicators of performance, such as benchmarks, research, and best practices, for health care policies and law for patients, organizations, and populations.
- Interpret for stakeholders the relevant benchmark metrics that illustrate the need for a policy or practice guidelines.
- Competency 5: Develop strategies to work collaboratively with policy makers, stakeholders, and colleagues to address environmental (governmental and regulatory) forces.
- Propose strategies for collaborating with a stakeholder group to implement and apply proposed institutional policy or practice guidelines related to a local, state, or federal health care policy or law.
- Competency 6: Apply various methods of communicating with policy makers, stakeholders, colleagues, and patients to ensure that communication in a given situation is professional, clear, efficient, and effective.
- Apply persuasive and effective communication strategies when presenting to a group of stakeholders.
Context
Improving quality and outcomes is a key focus for health care organizations. With a focus on quality, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) publish publically reported data online and update it quarterly, which allows patients to compare hospitals on a wide range of metrics. These metrics can also be used to inform policy changes at local, state, and federal levels.
It is important that health care leaders be able to clearly articulate policy positions and recommendations and garner buy-in and support from stakeholder groups for policy and practice changes in their organizations. Unfortunately, there is often a lack of effective communication. Consequently, it is important for health care leaders, when leading change, to ensure that clear and open communication is ongoing and informative.
Questions to Consider
As you prepare to complete this assessment, you may want to think about other related issues to deepen your understanding or broaden your viewpoint. You are encouraged to consider the questions below and discuss them with a fellow learner, a work associate, an interested friend, or a member of your professional community. Note that these questions are for your own development and exploration and do not need to be completed or submitted as part of your assessment.
- How would you ensure that a policy proposal you are presenting to stakeholders is effective for obtaining their support?
- What strategic planning model would you adopt for setting compliance, quality improvement, and implementation goals for your proposed policy?
Resources
Suggested Resources
The resources provided here are optional. You may use other resources of your choice to prepare for this assessment; however, you will need to ensure that they are appropriate, credible, and valid. The NHS-FP6004 – Health Care Policy and Law Library Guide can help direct your research, and the Supplemental Resources and Research Resources, both linked from the left navigation menu in your courseroom, provide additional resources to help support you.
Capella Resources
Capella Multimedia
- Building Buy-In and Communicating with Stakeholders| Transcript
- This media simulation enables you to walk through the preparation and communication steps that should be completed prior to delivering a presentation to a group of stakeholders. It also provides an opportunity to reflect on stakeholders’ wants and needs, as well as how to craft a message that will resonate with specific stakeholders.
- Capella University Library Resources
This resource addresses future financial issues in health care delivery:
- Tordrup, D., Angelis, A., & Kanavos, P. (2013). Preferences on policy options for ensuring the financial sustainability of health care services in the future: Results of a stakeholder survey. Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, 11(6), 639–52.
These resources explore leadership models in health care settings:
- Trastek, V. F., Hamilton, N. W., & Niles, E. E. (2014). Leadership models in health care-A case for servant leadership. Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 89(3), 374–81.
- Vestal, K. (2014). Change fatigue: A constant leadership challenge. Nurse Leader, 11(5), 10–11.
Internet Resources
These resources link to nursing leadership information that may of interest:
- American Nurses Association. (2016). Policy and Leadership [Search results]. Retrieved from http://www.nursingworld.org/search.aspx?SearchPhrase=policy%20and%20leadership
- The search results shown on this page for “policy + leadership” provide an extensive list of resources. You may choose to browse this list or modify the search terms to narrow the search.
- (2016). ICN-International Council of Nurses. Retrieved from https://www.linkedin.com/company/icn-international-council-of-nurses
- You may need to log in to LinkedIn to access the group page. LinkedIn membership is free of charge.
This resource links to the NCHL health leadership competency model:
- National Center for Healthcare Leadership. (2016). NCHL health leadership competency model. Retrieved from http:\nchl.org/static.asp?path=2852%2C3238
- In this assessment, you will build on the policy proposal work you completed in Assessment 2.
Preparation
The policy proposal you developed was well received by senior leadership. As a result, they have asked you to put together a presentation for one of the stakeholder groups that you identified in your proposal.
Your deliverable for this assessment is a slide deck to support your presentation. You may use Microsoft PowerPoint or any other suitable presentation software. Please use the notes section of each slide to develop your talking points and reference your sources, as appropriate.
If you choose to use PowerPoint and need help designing your presentation, a link to Microsoft tutorials is provided in the Supplemental Resources in the left-hand navigation pane of your FlexPathcourseroom. An additional PowerPoint guide is linked in the Resources.
The design and organization of your presentation will determine how many slides you need. However, in this instance, senior leaders have suggested that 8–12 slides is a reasonable expectation for this presentation.
Presentation Requirements
Note: The tasks outlined below correspond to grading criteria in the scoring guide.
In your presentation, in an order that makes sense for your presentation, senior leaders have asked that you:
- Interpret for stakeholders the relevant benchmark metrics that illustrate the need for a change in organizational policy and practice.
- Provide a brief review of the metrics you are trying to improve for this stakeholder group, based on the dashboard benchmark evaluation you completed in Assessment 1.
- Be sure to interpret the dashboard metrics in a way that is understandable and meaningful to the stakeholder group to which you are presenting.
- Explain your proposed change in policy and practice guidelines and how it relates to applicable local, state, or federal health care laws or policies.
- What specific changes are you proposing?
- How will these changes help drive performance improvement?
- Why are policy and practice guidelines important, from an organizational standpoint?
- What is the overall goal of the proposed policy or practice guidelines?
- Explain how your proposed change in policy or practice guidelines will affect the tasks and responsibilities of the stakeholder group to which you are presenting.
- How might your proposal change what tasks the stakeholder group performs or how they currently perform them?
- How might your proposal affect the stakeholder group’s workload?
- How might your proposal alter the responsibilities of the stakeholder group?
- How might your proposal improve working conditions for the stakeholder group?
- Explain how your proposed change in policy or practice guidelines will improve the quality of work and outcomes for the stakeholder group to which you are presenting.
- How will your proposed changes improve the group’s quality of work?
- How will your proposed change improve outcomes for the group?
- How will these improvements enable the stakeholder group to be more successful?
- Explain your strategies for collaborating with the stakeholder group to implement your proposed change in policy or practice guidelines.
- What role will the stakeholder group play in implementing your proposal?
- How could the stakeholder group collaborate with you and others during the implementation of your proposal?
- Why is the stakeholder group’s collaboration important to successful implementation of your proposal?
- Design your presentation to be persuasive and effective in communicating with the stakeholder group.
- Is your presentation logically organized, clear, and professional?
Presentation Design
Being able to effectively address any audience is a necessary leadership skill. Remember that you are the speaker, not a projectionist. Your purpose is not to present a slide show. Your audience is there to listen to what you have to say, not read your slides—or worse, listen to you read them. Design your presentation slides to compliment and reinforce your message and engage your listeners.
The following tips will help you create presentation slides that work to your advantage:
- Focus on the content of your presentation and the development of your main points. Remember that your purpose is to deliver a message on ethics that is clear, well organized, and engaging.
- Consider your intended audience and how best to communicate effectively with them.
- Create slides that support your presentation. They should not be your presentation.
- Use a professional presentation template, or one used in your organization.
- Ensure that your slide background provides sufficient visual contrast for your text and graphics.
- Avoid filling your slides with text. Use speaker notes to record the details you want to communicate to your audience.
- Be judicious in your use of bulleted lists. Consider a separate slide for each point.
- Use images and graphics, when appropriate, to illustrate information and make your points. Presentation slides are a visual medium. Images are more effective than text at capturing viewers’ attention.
- Avoid using images that are simply decorative. They can be a visual distraction and do not contribute to your message.
- Avoid using flashy slide transitions and animations. They can be both distracting and annoying. Keep your slide transitions consistent throughout the presentation.
- Add a slide to the end of your presentation to prompt questions from the audience.