SECTION 10: COMPETENCY ASSESSMENTS AND ACTION PLAN
INTRODUCTION
Competence assessment has historically been a controversial issue in the health care sector. This is because it involves an assessment of a wide range of issues as outlined in the action plan. The action plan drives the health care program designed to tackle the obesity within the minority population in Alameda County. It carries among other things the policies, strategies, required portfolios and procedures to full implementation of the action plan. Due to this wide range of issues, developing effective tools and indicators for a comprehensive assessment has been a major challenge. Additionally, the technicalities involved in designing a competence assessment plan have limited the scope within which a comprehensive plan is designed. The conflicting issues of incorporating the action plan assessment plan and the individual performance assessment plan into the healthcare has generated many negative reviews. There seems to be a conflicting position when both plans are implemented. Evidence-based practices conducted have not been able to resolve these conflicts.
Despite these challenges, the issue of obesity within Alameda County requires a comprehensive assessment plan. Statistics of this county indicate critical level. Following up on the implementation of the action plan thus is the only choice at hand without which there is a risk of leaving this population in a vulnerable health status position. The sensitivity with of culture and language in the health sector is so high that it cannot be assumed as one that can be wished away.
This section will focus on developing a competence assessment plan and action plan assessment suitable for the American Obesity Organization’s strategies to prevent and control obesity within Alameda County. This plan will focus not just on the performance of the health care workforce within this county, but also the competence with which they tackle their responsibilities in a multicultural society in line with the AOA action plan.
The plan will be implemented in two perspectives. The first perspective will be based on the Health Care Leadership Alliance Competence Directory domains. It will be referred to as the Objective Strategies Development Perspective (OSDP). This perspective will analyze the best practices under each of the domains. The purpose is to develop objective strategies for improvement. the second perspective will be system-based. In this perspective, the major concern will be the use and storage of data and information relevant to the action plan implementation. The importance of this perspective is to provide future data for research and development of evidence-based strategies to improve health care within this population. The data will include that of the client (obese patients within Alameda County), health care workforce within Alameda and the general information concerning the health status of the population of concern.
Perspective 1: The Objective Strategies Development Perspective (OSDP)
The plan will be based on the five key domains defined in the Health Care Leadership Alliance Competence Directory. The choice of these domains is solely because the action plan is population based and covers a wide range of issues. These domains provide a wide background upon which a comprehensive competence plan is designed. On the other hand, the domains significantly reduce the conflict between performance assessment plans and the competence plan designed for the overall action plan. These domains include professionalism, skills and knowledge in business, communication and relationship management, leadership and vast knowledge in healthcare sector.
The above domains are interdependent in nature and are meant to offer an objective competence assessment approach at cultural and linguistic level for the population in discussion. Considering the diversity of cultures and languages in Alameda County, the competence plan will seek to incorporate the aspect that has been documented as the major cause of health disparity between the minority population and their white counterparts.
Professionalism Domain
Professionalism is a key factor in the success of any strategic plan. It defines among other things the quality of the success achieved and how rightly the objectives have been met. This domain will seek to provide the tools and indicators relevant to enhancing professional behavior among all stakeholders involved in the design and implementation of the Action plan. These include health care workers, political leaders, parents, the workers within AOA, health care agencies and providers and the business community within Alameda. This domain seeks to use several factors as the tools and indicators of competence in a professional aspect. These include professional ethics, roles, responsibilities, behaviors, personal pursuits and professional accountability. Under these aspects, each stakeholder will be classified as an expert, competent or novice stakeholder.
Communication and Relationship Management Domain
Alameda County has a minority population with diversity in both culture and language. The National Standards for Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services in Health Care demand that the relationship between the chronic patients and the physicians, health care providers, institutions, community leaders, concerned organizations and everyone around them be considered in high regard. Maintaining such a relationship requires effective communication techniques for all the mentioned groups. This will be focusing on eliminating stereotypes associated with chronic patients this offering them psychological comfort within the community.
Effective communication means eliminating cultural and language barriers that prevent relationship building between the patient and the environment. In this regard, the AOA will use three tools to gauge the level of competence. These include relationship building, communications skills, negotiation, and facilitation techniques. These will be considered at organization level, community level and personal level especially within the health care workforce. All stakeholders will be gauged on the ability to utilize the action plan to ensure effective communication and relationship building between the patients and the community. These metrics will rank a stakeholder as a novice, competent or expert.
Leadership Domain
The success of an action plan depends on the leadership tasked with seeing through its implementation. The leadership structures in health care institutions, at political level, agency level and business community level, will be the key to success of the action plan for Alameda County. This domain will assess each of the stakeholders under four aspects. These include the ability to manage change and their skills and attitudes in a multicultural society. It also involves their organizational culture and climate and how it withstands the challenges of a multicultural society and finally, their communication strategies across all levels of interactions with other stakeholders. These pillars will ensure the whole society works towards a common objective without leaving any group behind.
Business Knowledge and Skills Domain
At all levels, resources limit projects. Similarly, the Action plan for Alameda County that seeks to reduce obesity cases within the minority population will be under resource limitation. Resources will limit all stakeholders. Patients and the population in general may not be able to maintain a healthy diet culture for a lifetime. The poverty levels within this population are a limiting aspect for them. The health care institutions are funded by state and federal governments and may not be able to get the adequate finances to tackle obesity without compromising other sectors of health care. The AOA is involved in other nationwide projects that it still has to keep track. This is despite the fact that well-wishers fund its kitty.
Therefore, business knowledge and skills will be crucial in ensuring that all available resources combined can put to maximum use to ensure significant success of the action plan. Objectivity is the key to success of the plan. Competence at this level will be based on the ability to manage a population-based action plan funded on an unstructured manner.
Health Care Environment Awareness Domain
This domain focuses on ensuring enough knowledge of the multicultural healthcare environment for all stakeholders. This is done in several aspects including the health care personnel, the patient, systems, organization, and the community relationship with the health care environment. This domain brings the stakeholders together to offer practical solutions to the individual patients and the society in general. It helps eliminate the cultural and language barriers in health care while improving the relationship between all stakeholders and the health care sector. It involves designing models suitable for use by all stakeholders, community educational programmes, interdependency among health care institutions, healthy competition among health care institutions, the economics of health and issues affecting health acre workforce.
This domain provides a chance to break the cultural and language barriers that affect the quality of health care. It provides a common platform upon which all stakeholders can share knowledge and skills relevant to health care.
Perspective 2: System-Based Perspectives
This perspective places emphasis on the collection and storage of relevant data that can be applicable for research in the future. Under this system, the healthcare personnel will be tasked with collecting important data and information from patients. The will also be responsible for inputting the data into a database. From here, the information can be retrieved in the future for formulating evidence-based techniques. The agencies and organizations listed as stakeholders can also be used to collect pertinent information from society members on their views concerning heath care methodologies. Gradual increase in volume of data would mean better health care solutions for sidelined multicultural societies.
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