Senior Project

Final Paper: Senior Project
To start, select one of the following approved topics for your Senior Project. You may also have a topic of your choice approved by the instructor in Week One. Many of the approved topics have specific subtopics outlined and, while these topics are not all-inclusive, they do provide insight into specific areas to consider.

Approved Topics:
Examine how participative leadership functions in today’s modern health care organization and compare it to other types of leadership styles. Evaluate how each type of leadership style may impact organizational culture, employee performance, and how it may help or hinder the legitimacy of authority.
As an administrator, address the challenges of employee recruitment and retention of health care professionals. Additional subtopics may include trends in the nursing workforce, shortage of primary care physicians, staff turnover, retention, and staffing patterns.
Analyze the dual role of a manager and healthcare professional. Examine challenges that the health professional compared to those of a non-health professional, may face in terms of leadership style, and the impact these challenges have on organizational culture. The benefits of a health professional manager as an organizational resource may also be included. Explore the career trends of health professionals in organizational leadership positions, such as the types of health professional training that leaders tend to have in common, and the typical demographic background of health professional managers.
The health care industry must anticipate and monitor trends that could possibly affect its overall survival. Analyze how regulation of the health care industry impacts a health care organization. Explore some of the possible survival organizational strategies such as, but not limited to, mergers, and affiliations, achieving accreditation status, professional licensure.
Analyze the impact of technology on how health care services are delivered. The impact of technology on employee performance, organizational structure, and management planning may also be considered.
Analyze the impact of any recent social and/or ethical trends on the health care industry. Discuss at least two issues.
After identifying your topic, choose a health care organization in your area. This organization may be small or large and may provide single inpatient health service or multiple outpatient services; it is your choice. Consider your topic in light of the leadership of this organization and research the challenges and successes it has faced in managing operational effectiveness. You are welcome to use as many research methods as possible to obtain information for your organization and its managers (e.g., web-based resources, electronic articles, or personal interviews). The more informed you are, the better prepared you will be to complete your project.

Finally, develop a management training program that includes relevant guidelines and information to combat the issues identified in the selected topic, as well as recommendations for managers to more effectively lead health care organizations. Your training program should be in the form of a 20 to 25 slide PowerPoint presentation (excluding title and reference slides) that includes comprehensive speaker’s notes (i.e., at least 150 words) for each slide. Utilize at least three to five scholarly sources from the Ashford University Library and two to three current, scholarly web sources (total of five to eight references required). All sources must be cited according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center. Your presentation must be engaging and relevant to your audience. Lines of text on a slide will not be sufficient for this project. It should contain at least five images, graphics, and/or multimedia that communicate your training clearly to your audience. For tips on creating an excellent presentation, read this overview.
Creating the Senior Project
The Senior Project:
Must be 20 to 25 PowerPoint slides (excluding title and reference slides) in length. There are 20 content criteria worth a total of 10 points.
Must include a title slide that contains the following:
Title of project
Your name
Course name and number
Instructor’s name
Date submitted
Must include an introduction with a succinct thesis statement.
Must address the topic of the project with critical thought in the areas of:
Organization details
Challenges and opportunities
Training program outcomes
Impact on at least three stakeholder groups involved delineated by cost, quality, and access to service
Suggested actions
Must include a conclusion that reaffirms your thesis.
Must use at least five supporting graphics (images, graphics, and/ or multimedia) are included and relevant communicating the training content (two points).
Must include speaker’s notes that have evidence of critical thinking and application (content analysis, synthesis, evaluation) related to the research methodology used to develop (six points):
Project content
Practical and relevant solutions to the organizational challenges/opportunities
Appropriate evaluation of individual stakeholder groups involved
Must use at least three to five scholarly sources from the Ashford University Library and two to three current, scholarly web sources.
Must document all sources in APA style, as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center.
Must include a separate reference slide, formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center.
POWER POINT REQUIREMENTS:
Please Note the following required sections of a Power Point Presentation.
· You Must include Speaker’s Notes for all PP presentations and will have points deducted for not including speaker’s notes on every slide.
· Paragraphs Do Not belong on slides
· Think about standing in front of an audience. Bullet point slides provide an easy to read overview- Your speaker’s notes describe what each bullet point implies
1. Introduction Slide-this slide informs your audience of what material you will be covering in the presentation. Be sure to use just 4-5 bullet points of information

2. Bullet Points should be on every slide. Text is limited to approximately five lines, approximately five words per bulleted item- bullets provide the overview of what the slide is describing. Paragraphs Do Not belong on slides

3. Include Speaker’s Notes at bottom of each slide in Normal View
These notes are in paragraph form. The notes include detailed information describing each of the bullet point comments on your slides. The speaker notes earn the majority of the presentation grade. For each summary line on the slide, you should have at least one paragraph in the speaker notes. Each paragraph should contain 3-5 sentences and each sentence should be 10-15 words in length

4. Include images on the slides along with your bullet points
Images can be found in Microsoft clipart or search for visuals in a site such as: ADAM, Bing, etc.
Graphics (pictures) help break up reading the slides

5. Use 5 Citations on at least “3” slides
You should included a citation for every reference
Remember that you must use a citation on the slide or in speaker’s notes if you quote another author, for ex: (Hoeger, 2012. Pg 234).
Or if you use an author’s graphic/ image
Remember copyright laws when taking an image from the internet.
Your 5 citations must be researched information, not just citations from the images used.

6. Conclusion/ Summary Slide
2-3 line Summary, in bullet points to wrap up the presentation

7. Reference Slide
List the References you used for the presentation—minimum requirements are listed
Use correct APA format to list references