Developing a Business Case

Develop a 4-7-page business case for the initiative you proposed in Assessment 1. Examine feasibility and cost-benefit considerations over a 5-year period, analyze ways to mitigate risks, and complete a cost-benefit analysis.

Introduction

Note: Each assessment in this course builds upon the work you have completed in previous assessments. Therefore, you must complete the assessments in the order in which they are presented.

As a master’s-level health care practitioner, you are expected to consider a number of factors when analyzing the feasibility of a new initiative. For example, you must consider the various types of risk (such as patient safety, physical plant, financial, or reputation), as well as the present and future value of the service line or economic opportunity in which you are investing. You must also balance your ethical and moral responsibility to provide quality care to patients and populations with your responsibility to protect your organization’s assets and economic viability in the near and long terms.

Instructions

Develop a business case for the economic initiative you proposed in Assessment 1. Examine the feasibility and cost-benefit considerations of implementing your proposed initiative over the next five years. Analyze ways to mitigate risks and complete a cost-benefit analysis.

Note: Remember that you can submit all, or a portion of, your draft business case to Smarthinking for feedback before you submit the final version for this assessment. If you plan on using this free service, be mindful of the turnaround time of 24–48 hours for receiving feedback.

The requirements for your business case, outlined below, correspond to the scoring guide criteria, so be sure to address each main point. Read the performance-level descriptions for each criterion to see how your work will be assessed. In addition, be sure to note the requirements for document format and length and for supporting evidence.

• Analyze the potential economic opportunities and risks associated with your proposed initiative.
  • How do the potential opportunities benefit your organization or care setting?
  • How could potential risks pose a threat to the financial security of your organization or care setting?
  • How do the potential economic opportunities compare to the potential economic risks?
• Propose ethical and culturally sensitive solutions that address the risks associated with your initiative to the future economic security of your organization or care setting.
  • Which risks are potentially the most significant for your organization or care setting?
    • How could you modify your proposed initiative to mitigate those risks?
    • How have other organizations and experts in the field dealt with similar risks?
  • How do ethics and equality factor into your proposed solutions?
    • Are your solutions unfairly burdening or disadvantaging any specific groups?
  • How will this proposal affect community health care delivery outcomes?
    • What makes this a great opportunity for economic growth?
    • What potential issues should be considered?
• Analyze the economic costs and benefits of your proposed initiative over a five-year period.
  • Use the Cost-Benefit Analysis Template [XLSX] for your calculations. Add the worksheet to your business case as an appendix.
  • Does your analysis warn against specific aspects of your proposed initiative?
  • How would you recommend that your findings be incorporated into decisions about the feasibility of your proposed initiative?
• Propose ethical and culturally equitable ways of keeping costs under control, while maximizing the benefits of your initiative.
  • What costs are you most likely to be able to control or reduce?
    • How would you go about ensuring this?
  • How could controlling or reducing these costs affect the benefits of your proposed initiative?
    • What strategies could you employ to maintain or maximize these benefits, while controlling or reducing costs?
  • How do you plan to ensure that any cost controls or benefit reductions are ethical and equitable?
• Justify the relevance and significance of the quantitative and qualitative economic, financial, and scholarly evidence you used to support your business case.
  • This criterion applies to any evidence you cited throughout your business case. Your evidence should be persuasive and relevant to your findings, proposals, and recommendations. Consider one or more of the following questions when citing support evidence:
    • How is the evidence relevant to your organization or care setting?
    • How is the evidence relevant to your proposed economic initiative?
    • How does the evidence illustrate a solution that has been successful in the past?
    • How does the evidence illustrate that an initiative or solution is likely to be a net benefit to the organization or care setting?
• Write concisely and directly, using active voice.
  • Proofread your document before you submit it to minimize errors that could distract readers and make it more difficult for them to focus on the substance of your business case.
• Apply current APA formatting to in-text citations and references.

Example Assessment: You may use the following to give you an idea of what a Proficient or higher rating on the scoring guide would look like:

• Assessment 2 Example [PDF].

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS

Your assessment should also meet the following requirements:

• Format: Format your business case using APA current style. Use the APA Style Paper Tutorial [DOCX] to help you in writing and formatting your business case. Be sure to include:
  • A title page and references page. An abstract is not required.
  • A running head on all pages.
  • Appropriate section headings.
• Length: Your business case should be 4–7 pages in length, not including the title page and references page.
• Supporting evidence: Cite 4–5 authoritative and scholarly resources to support your business case. Be sure that your sources include specific economic data.

Portfolio Prompt: You may choose to save your business case to your ePortfolio.

Competencies Measured

By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and assessment scoring guide criteria:

• Competency 1: Analyze the effects of financial and economic factors (such as cost-benefit, supply and demand, return on investment, and risks) in a health care system on patient care, services offered, and organizational structures and operation.
  • Analyze the potential economic opportunities and risks associated with a proposed initiative.
  • Analyze the economic costs and benefits of a proposed initiative over a five-year period.
• Competency 2: Develop ethical and culturally equitable solutions to economic problems within a health care organization in an effort to improve the quality of care and services offered.
  • Propose ethical and culturally equitable ways of keeping costs under control, while maximizing the benefits of an initiative.
• Competency 3: Justify the qualitative and quantitative information used to guide economic decision making to stakeholders and colleagues.
  • Justify the relevance and significance of the quantitative and qualitative economic, financial, and scholarly evidence used to support a business case.
• Competency 4: Develop ethical and culturally equitable economic strategies to address dynamic environmental forces and ensure the future security of an organization’s resources and its ability to provide quality care.
  • Propose ethical and culturally sensitive solutions that address the risks associated with an initiative to the future economic security of the organization or care setting.
• Competency 5: Produce clear, coherent, and professional written work, in accordance with Capella writing standards.
  • Write concisely and directly using active voice.
  • Apply APA formatting to in-text citations and references.