The document provides guidance for Capella University students to meet with a healthcare professional to obtain approval and feedback for their health care problem analysis project. It outlines preparing for the meeting by researching the organization and professional, scheduling the meeting, and presenting the project proposal. The purpose is to refine the performance indicators and measures based on the professional's input, ensure the project is feasible given available data, and get final approval to proceed.

1. Capella University Health Care Problem Analysis Paper
Practicing Health Care Professional Meeting and Project Approval Guide Purpose of the
Meeting The purpose of this meeting is to: • Explain your role as an undergraduate learner
offering a project as a part of your degree completion requirement at Capella University.
Note: Remember that you are an ambassador for Capella University. Your professional
appearance, behavior, and preparation should reflect positively on the organization. •
Explain your proposed health care problem analysis project and the course requirements to
the health care professional. • Redefine your performance indicators and outcome
measures, as needed. • Negotiate potential changes to the project that will enhance its value
to an organization, while meeting the capstone course requirements. • Obtain the health
care professional’s approval for your health care problem analysis proposal. Schedule the
Meeting After identifying your first choice for a point of contact in the organization, you
need to contact that person and schedule a meeting. The meeting can take place in person,
via web conference, or over the phone. Be prepared to contact a second person if you are
unable to meet your first choice. Note: Face-to-face interaction is essential for developing a
strong professional network. An inperson meeting is strongly encouraged. However, if you
are unable to meet with the client in person, consider hosting an online meeting to increase
the level of engagement in the call. Initiate Contact You are encouraged to use the following
sample talking points to initiate contact with the health care organization: My name is
[insert your name]. I am a learner in the health care administration undergraduate program
at Capella University. I am currently enrolled in the capstone course, in which learners help
a health care organization examine a real-world issue or problem. The topic must be one in
which I can examine the existing information or data, either from a practicing health care
professional or perhaps the data that has already been collected. Potential examples include
patient satisfaction surveys, compliance with a new regulation, patient safety initiatives, or
evaluating process deviations for a new service line offering or system, such as admitting
home care patients onto the service. 1 I am offering to volunteer my services to draft a
project proposal, complete a data review, and provide recommendations on how to address
the issue. These recommendations will include insights from current peer-reviewed health
care journals. Would you be willing to work with me on a project that examines data on
[insert topic here; for example, compliance with the new hospice reimbursement system]?
This would involve meeting with me for 15–20 minutes to provide feedback on how I would
examine and organize the data. Then I would review the data, review the relevant,
authoritative literature, and provide a project report, with my findings, at the end of the

2. course. Would this be helpful, and if so, may I contact you via e-mail to send a copy of the
draft proposal after my faculty member has approved it? Thanks so much for your time,
[Your name] Health Care Professional Background and Communication Preferences
Consider the following questions before you meet with the selected health care
professional: • Have you thoroughly researched the organization’s website and the health
care professional’s background? Have you obtained any other information necessary to
provide perspective on the organization’s potential needs? • Is the health care
professional’s organization currently undergoing any major change that might have an
impact on your proposed project? • Does the health care professional prefer to meet with
you over the phone, via web conference or chat room, in person, or via another modality? •
What time or setting is ideal for the health care professional? Present Your Project Proposal
At the meeting, present the project proposal you developed in Assessment 1, and explain
your role as a undergraduate learner offering a health care problem analysis project as a
part of your degree completion requirement at Capella University. • Explain your proposed
project and the course requirements, clarifying the project scope, execution, and focus.
Explain that you are seeking the health care professional’s approval to review the existing
data. Answer any questions. • Describe briefly what type of data you will be examining,
what performance indicators you will be examining, and how you are proposing to measure
each indicator. In addition, explain how you will visually display your summarized data (for
example, as a pie chart, graph, spreadsheet, and process map). • Provide evidence-based
support for the assertions and conclusions you make. • Communicate to your client any
statistical or other software that may be needed for the data analysis. • Articulate the value
of your proposed project. Explain how you will measure the outcomes for each of the four
areas of the balanced scorecard. 2 Refine Your Project Proposal After presenting your
proposal, request feedback from the health care professional on the scope and feasibility of
your project. In addition, attempt to identify examples of evidence-based support for
selected key performance indicators, determine whether you can gain access to additional
related data sets, and verify the accessibility of data sets that could be made available for
you to review. The meeting is an opportunity to work with the health care professional to
redefine the performance indicators and outcome measures that you propose to examine. It
is also an opportunity to make changes that will be of mutual benefit and enhance the
project’s outcome. Before approving your health care problem analysis proposal, the health
care professional may have a few suggestions to enhance your data analysis, such as adding
a performance indicator, using a specific benchmark, or using an existing assessment tool.
This individual may also want to add something to your project for inclusion in the final
report or may want you to spend more time on the project than is allotted. In such
instances, you must negotiate a solution that meets the course requirements and your
health care professional’s needs. It is your job to verify, discover, or redefine your
performance indicators and outcome measures so you can proceed to your data review.
Consequently, you may wish to initiate a preliminary discussion with your health care
professional on the following points: • Units of service. • Types of units applicable to your
project. • Selection of units. • Output performance measures: o Scope definition. o Service
completion. o Client outcomes. • Quality dimensions. • Four types of outcome measures and

3. rationale for your selected measures. • Process for selecting outcome measures, such as
stakeholder input and assessment. • Use of standardized measures. • Use of performance
measurement information. During the meeting, you may discover the following: • You have
chosen the wrong indicators for your problem statement. • The indicators are not included
in the organization’s data sets. • The health care professional thinks that different indicators
might be more helpful. • Limited data on a performance indicator exists. • Incomplete
entries or lack of consistent coding of data exists. • Mismatched data sets exist from which
you have to generate a meaningful summary. 3 Obtain Project Approval Agree to submit a
revised project proposal, which integrates the health care professional’s feedback and any
negotiated changes, before you end the meeting. Try to obtain a commitment from this
individual to sign and return the approved proposal so that you may proceed with the data
review. Submit the revised proposal to the health care professional for final approval.
Ensure that this individual signs the revised copy of your proposal. Meeting Follow-Up
Although it is not required, you may choose to follow up with your health care professional
via email or phone after completing the assessment. This would be an ideal time to extend
your thanks for reviewing your initial proposal. You may offer to e-mail the health care
professional a draft of the project report that you will complete in the next assessment.
Upon receiving the report, this individual has the option to review the type and purpose of
the data you are analyzing, how you will organize it, and how the data will be presented in
the final report. Even though the course does not require you to receive feedback from the
health care professional about your completed report, the person you interview is the
professional audience your data review project is intended to serve. This person is very
likely going to be interested in seeing your complete report and could serve as an informal
editor of your deliverable for this course. 4