Health care, as an industry in this country, is BIG. The areas included in the general industry are diverse and include provider organizations, such as hospitals, physician practices, outpatient services, and wellness/fitness services. There are also manufacturing companies, such as pharmaceuticals, medical equipment manufacturers, and other suppliers. In addition, there are educational and research organizations. Further breakdown of the industry can be by specialty, such as mental health, pediatrics, geriatrics, specialty hospitals, specialty areas such as orthopedics, cardiology, etc. Another perspective can be private providers, both for profit and not-for profit, and public health, including government owned and operated organizations. Payer systems, such as managed care organizations, insurance companies, and employers are also part of the industry. Regulators, such as the government and accrediting agencies are a large part of health care. Trends, such as consumer-driven health care, social networking/internet technology, and technological advancements in general related to health care are also part of the industry. There are also different areas of management, such as administration, clinical, technology, financial management and small business management. That said, YOUR interest is likely focused on one or two areas.

This course looks at health care management from the big picture, 60,000 foot level of current and future issues, and a basic explanation of issues you will face as you move forward in your career. For the paper, you need to pick one of the areas of leadership in health care that interests you as your paper topic. You can pick a broad area, such as leadership of mental health or physician practices or public health services. This is NOT a clinical management paper. If you prefer, you can be very specific and pick something like managing in-patient surgical services or HMOs. Further, if you are interested in a specific leadership area, you can pick small business health care or financial management, for example. The point is to pick what interests you, yet be careful not to go overboard, as the paper will be only a few pages! Make the paper interesting for you and use it as an opportunity to learn and to help the reader learn as well.

Describe, in a sentence or two, the overall health care leadership topic of your choice. Also predict, briefly, what you think may be the trends or challenges that you may discover about your topic of choice. Finally, state where you anticipate finding material that provides supporting information related to the trends or challenges of your health care leadership topic. Post no later than the end of the module, but as soon as you have the information, so that we can finalize and give you credit for your topic choice and discussion response. In addition, read the posts of other students and provide constructive feedback.