HSCI 430 assignment

This week you read about organization dynamics that influence health disparities in diverse populations. Review the questions below and reflect on what you learned. Answer the questions by reflecting on what you learned and synthesizing that information to create solutions. 

1. Imagine you are the CEO of a health care clinic in a rural area. Over the past five years, there have been increasing complaints about the lack of diversity in age among the clinic staff. In particular, complaints have skyrocketed regarding the young staff and lack of cultural sensitivity to the aging population. The board of trustees is concerned and called a meeting with you to discuss this. During the meeting, they blamed you for not ensuring better age diversity in staff. Now you must respond and remedy the situation. You were told to create policies and practices to increase diversity. 

a. Identify two policies (i.e. rules) and practices (i.e. procedures) the clinic will begin implementing that will help in the recruitment and retention of older staff. 

b. Describe how and why these policies and practices would be beneficial to the clinic. 

c. Then, describe how the same policies might benefit employees from other groups, for example, individuals of a different age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, and so on. In other words, how might these policies and practices benefit those who are different from the older staff? 

2. Refer to Figure 3.1 in your text. How do you think the social factors that contribute to disparities in workforce for minorities can be overcome? Hypothesize one micro, one mezzo (meso), and one macro level practice that can be done to change the workforce and career outcomes shown in the figure. You should come up with a total of three ideas.

If you need clarity about the difference between micro and macro, here is an article that provides an excellent breakdown using the field of social work: https://dworakpeck.usc.edu/news/do-you-know-the-difference-between-micro-mezzo-and-macro-level-social-work

Micro idea:

Mezzo idea:

Macro idea: 

3. Review the healthcare organization checklist from chapter three in your text. If you work in a health care organization, use the assessment checklist in this chapter to evaluate the organization’s responsiveness to diversity. If you do not work in a health care organization, use the checklist to evaluate a health clinic that you are a patient at. Another option is to evaluate your place of employment or your academic institution. Though all items on the list may not fully apply, it is still ok to use these organizations to complete the assignment. Later in the course you will complete an organizational assessment (ORGANX) so it is important for you to become familiar with evaluating organizations now. 

a. What are the organization’s areas of strength? 

b. Which areas need the most improvement?