Final Project
Healthcare Admin Capstone
Milestone Four
Planning
August 29, 2021
Carrie Ferrell
Southern New Hampshire University
Final Project
Improving Mental Health Care Access in Rural Areas
Planning
Planning is a crucial element within a health care organization. We must ensure careful
planning is done to successfully implement a plan to attract new providers as well as update
resources to allow for virtual technology to allow providers from other areas to see patients
within the community. During the planning stage, all contingencies should be considered.
Certain elements such as objectives, ethical and legal considerations, and resources should be
carefully thought of. Finally, a timeline should be established to ensure the program is up and
running in time. In this section, we will go over these elements.
Objectives
It is imperative that we consider the objectives and goals of this project when planning
the implementation. The organizations policies should also be a factor at this stage. The goals,
objectives, and policies are a vital and functional piece of a healthcare organization. These
factors help to ensure the start of a successful implementation for the program. The goal of this
program is to recruit and retain additional mental health professionals to our community as well
as increase our ability to provide telehealth services to our patients which will increase the ability
of our community to access mental health services. By setting SMART goals, the program will
be able to achieve the overall objectives, which will allow the program to be implemented within
the specific time frame to help achieve measurable and attainable results. "Rural communities
often face challenges in maintaining an adequate health workforce, making it difficult to provide
needed patient care or to meet staffing requirements for their facilities."[ CITATION RHI21 \l
1033 ] Because of this, our organization needs to be proactive on both recruiting and retaining
Final Project
our workforce. By having successful retention and recruitment policies in place, it will allow us
to better serve our patients and communities.
For this program, we will focus on recruitment. "Successful recruitment and retention
practices can minimize the number and duration of staff vacancies, which can, in turn, save
money, improve quality of care, and ensure that services are provided in the community"
[ CITATION RHI21 \l 1033 ] It can be an expensive and lengthy process to recruit healthcare
professionals and acclimate them to the community. It is crucial to recruit professionals who are
well-suited to the organization as well as the community. Once they are recruited, it is important
to be proactive in retaining these employees. This process is known as recruiting for retention.
Many factors will come into play for providers to make the decision to come to our organization.
These factors include the mission and purpose of our organization, the size of the community, the
community amenities, and the school quality and availability. Concerns that we must address for
potential employees are the size of their workload, the availability of time off, on call frequency,
opportunities fo