Health service administration is a branch in health sciences that focuses on planning, directing, and coordinating health services. Health administrators are important in the health field because they oversee daily managerial tasks in the health department. As part of the requirements to earn a degree in this major, I was required to complete an internship related to my major to gain practical healthcare experience. In search of a site to complete my internship, I chose the Old Dominion University (ODU) Center for Global Health.
The ODU Center for Global Health is a center located in the College of Health Sciences. It was established in 2012 and focuses on research, services and health education to improve the quality of health for people both locally and globally (ODU, n.d.). The center’s vision statement states that ” It aims to leverage Hampton Roads communities’ unique strengths in education, research, and service, to improve the health and quality of life for people locally and around the world”(ODU, n.d.). While it’s mission statement states that ” It is dedicated to positively impacting the health and well-being of populations through collaborations with faculty, students, communities and partners”(ODU, n.d.). The above statements help to encourage the center’s mission on improving the health of the people. Not to mention, the center offers internship, service-learning and research opportunities to undergraduates, graduate students, and community members.
During the duration of my internship, some assignments I performed were designing a phone call script and collected data from phone interviews, worked on workplace culture organization, researched major-related jobs on Indeed, researched community resources for seniors in Norfolk and Chesapeake, and a project involving COVID-19. Furthermore, the following report would analyze the issues relevant to the center, its global responsibilities, and some recommendations
Issues
Firstly, some issues relevant to the center are insufficient funding, staffing concerns, and overdue strategic planning. Funding is the provision of resources to the organization to meet the financial needs of a program or project. It is very important in health promotion because it provides educational opportunities, support emergency preparations and aid in research to learn major health concerns associated with the population. Not to mention, the lack of funds can play a role in delaying a program or terminate the intervention. The United States federal funding talks about how funding has decreased over the years since 9/11, and that most public health preparedness funds were used to support diseases to help improve the health of the global economy (Erwin, 2018). Likewise, the issue of funding relates to my finance and budgeting in healthcare class because it taught me accounting concepts and basic budgeting to learn how finance work in health care.
Likewise, staffing is the process of hiring eligible candidates for a position in an organization. It is very important because it helps to cut workload to improve productivity. Similarly, staffing concerns are another issue affecting the center. Lack of sufficient staffing can also cause a high level of unfocused attention to the community’s needs. For instance, during my internship. I realized a shortage of staff at the center which led to work overload for the employees. A report on developing a readiness plan suggests how an allocation of staff would assist in accurately detecting and identifying the cause of the flu to find testing ways to prepare the issue (Phillips, 2019). This report relates to the present pandemic challenges the country/world is facing such as the lack of sufficient staff in the hospital to care for the coronavirus patients.
While strategic planning is a process of the organization establishing itself by making decisions to meet its goals. It is very important because it is vital in every organization and provides a guide in evaluating the company’s progress by assessing its goals. Overdue strategic planning was an issue I observed at the center in a way that there was a lack of focus on projects due to resource limitations. Important to realize, strategic planning in an organization is responsible for decision making and accountability. For instance, strategic planning involves using SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis in evaluating a plan to ensure that their goals are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely (SMART). Furthermore, an article states how effective strategic planning was taken into consideration in deciding to support the implementation of technology to support the transfer of patient’s medical data between health providers to ensure sustainability with health organizations (Langabeer II, Champagne, & Sullivan, 2016). Moreover, I took a class in human resources management and this class taught me the importance of strategic planning and how it can reform an organization. In other words, the implementation of a good strategic plan helped the organization achieve better results.
Global Responsibility
Secondly, Global health is the complete state of being healthy mentally, physically and improving good health in the population both locally and internationally. It is very important because it plays a vital role in identifying and improving health problems. Not to mention, the impact of the center on global health focuses on how to provide the global community with good health.
Some of the global responsibilities the center is responsible for are having partnerships with different health organizations, developing intervention measures to support individual and community health, researching and evaluating potential solutions to global health issues, and creating access to community resources in vulnerable communities. These are some responsibilities that continuously encourage the center to aim higher due to the impact on how their research and projects improved the community locally and internationally. The center collaborates with a lot of organizations such as Norfolk Department of Public Health, Cacoa 360 Ghana (C2C, Ghana), and Chesapeake Health Department. Not to mention, the Norfolk Department of Public Health and Chesapeake Health Department are local departments, while C2C Ghana was a collaboration I served in to help create educational handwashing games and tools to help the children in Ghana know the importance of handwashing and how it can improve their health. Also, the center has contributed to creating interventive measures through researching and evaluating the community needs to improve the health of the people.
The above global interactions help to identify most of the responsibilities of the center to improve the health of the people. Brooks et al state how environmental health plays a role in public health such that the services and responsibilities provided by health officials in an environment are essential in reducing the challenges of health needs in an environment if consistent care and provision of community resources are available to the people(Brooks, Gerding, Landeen, Bradley, Callahan, Cushing, Hailu, Hall, Hatch, Jurries, Kalis, Kelly, Laco, Lemin, McInnes, Olsen, Stratman, White, Wille, & Sarisky, 2019).
Recommendation
Thirdly, some recommendations that can help assist the center with its issues are focusing more on the strategic planning and addressing the staffing concerns by encouraging students to be research assistants. Focusing more on strategic planning is very important because a good plan can increase operational efficiency and can allow an organization to be proactive. Furthermore, it helps an organization to see its future, keep up with trends in the field, provides management aligning the organization’s mission and vision to achieve its goals in the community to improve good health. For instance, the implementation of a transformational plan of care led to a strategic retreat that identified improvement processes with high value-adding potential which allowed accurate outcomes to be the results of the implemented plans (Elsasser, White, & Jones, 2018). Equally important, addressing staffing concerns is a way of resolving the issue of understaffing at the center. Some suggestions like recruiting students to be research assistants and employing eligible people to work can help relieve the workload on the managers to help in planning for other events in the future for the community. In all, the above recommendations can be taken into consideration to see its impact on the center’s growth.
Conclusion
In summary, health services administration is a branch of health sciences that focuses on planning, directing, and coordinating health services. I chose the Old Dominion University (ODU) Center for Global Health. It is a center located in the College of Health Sciences and was established in 2012. Some issues the center has are insufficient funding, staffing concerns, and overdue strategic planning. These issues play a role in improving the center and as such, I think the center should consider reviewing its plan to align its aims with its goals. Not to mention, the global responsibilities of the center helps to identify how the center is important to the community locally and internationally. Likewise, the proposed recommendations on how to resolve the issues can help the center to continue impacting their communities, projects, and research. In all, I learned a lot of things and got exposed to how the center impacts the communities they serve and its goal, and it is great place to get exposed to real-life experiences and can improve one’s chances of getting a position after their internship.
Reference
Erwin, P. C. (2018). Disaster preparedness and response: Who will fund? American Journal of Public Health, 108, S351–S352. https://ajph-aphapublications-org.proxy.lib.odu.edu/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2018.304712
Phillips, J. E. (2019). Developing a flu readiness plan: Factors your healthcare system should consider to manage increased testing demand. MLO: Medical Laboratory Observer, 51(9), 40–44. web.b.ebscohost.com.proxy.lib.odu.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=17&sid=53108cb1-5a1f-4d4f-baf9-6a9a6561f01c%40pdc-v-sessmgr06
Langabeer II, J. R., Champagne, T., & Sullivan, S. (2016). Exploring business strategy in health information exchange organizations. Journal of Healthcare Management, 61(1), 15–27. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.odu.edu/10.1097/00115514-201601000-00005
http://web.b.ebscohost.com.proxy.lib.odu.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=10&sid=6628956b-1969-4b64-afbd-9e0d84b8b2b4%40pdc-v-sessmgr04
Brooks, B. W., Gerding, J. A., Landeen, E., Bradley, E., Callahan, T., Cushing, S., Hailu, F., Hall, N., Hatch, T., Jurries, S., Kalis, M. A., Kelly, K. R., Laco, J. P., Lemin, N., McInnes, C., Olsen, G., Stratman, R., White, C., Wille, S., & Sarisky, J. (2019). Environmental health practice challenges and research needs for U.S. Health Departments. Environmental Health Perspectives, 127(12), 125001-1-125001–125011. https://ehp-niehs-nih-gov.proxy.lib.odu.edu/doi/10.1289/EHP5161
Elsasser, E. J., White, C. A., & Jones, M. R. (2018). Implementation of a transformational plan of care at a Veterans Affairs medical center. American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy, 75, S72–S76. http://web.a.ebscohost.com.proxy.lib.odu.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=15&sid=d375cf74-64b9-436f-a20a-69ff6043d8ff%40sdc-v-sessmgr02
Old Dominion University. (n.d.). Center for Global Health. Retrieved from https://www.odu.edu/hs/centers/globalhealth