OMED 1415 Health Needs Assessment Protocol, Coursework, University of Greenwich

Aims and learning outcomes

Tackling health inequalities and ensuring equity is an important role for global healthcare managers and leaders. An understanding of health needs assessment is important in tackling health inequalities and ensuring that the unmet health needs of populations are met by informing decision-making on the planning and deploying of resources to address the health priorities of local populations. This module focuses on understanding health needs assessment and linking it to healthcare priority setting. Methods and tools for Health Needs Assessment will be explored and applied to real-life case studies.

On successful completion of this module, a student will be able to:
1.    Critically discuss the different approaches to health needs assessment.
2.    Evaluate different methods and tools for carrying out health needs assessment.
3.    Critically explore the key role of public participation and stakeholder engagement in health care assessment and issues that may arise.
4.    Prepare a comprehensive health needs assessment protocol for a specified population.

2.    Rationale for assessment
The Health Needs Assessment protocol is intended for students to synthesize and apply the information they learn in the module to a specific patient population and setting and propose how they would go about conducting a health needs assessment in this population and setting, following the steps in a recognized Health Needs Assessment model. Students are also expected to choose credible tools and methods that can support the proposed Health Needs Assessment and demonstrate a plan for public participation and patient and stakeholder engagement. It is expected that this is a high-quality, academic work and that this protocol could be implemented in a real-world setting.

3.    Guidelines for the assessment
This assessment consists of an in-person, group seminar presentation that is a formative assessment (not for marks) and an individual, written health needs assessment protocol
 
that is summative (for marks). It is recommended that students take advantage of the academic and library skills support that the university offers.

Formative Assessment

The formative assessment consists of an in-person, group presentation on a proposed health needs assessment protocol. The population, setting for the protocol do not necessarily need to be the same as the individual summative assessment. The group presentation should include PowerPoint slides (or equivalent) and follow the same headings as the summative assessment. Groups will be allocated approximately 10 minutes to present, and all group members must present during the scheduled sessions. Students will be randomly assigned to groups, and groups will be randomly assigned to seminar time slots by the module leader. Written and/or verbal feedback on the presentation will be given to each group by the module leader.

Summative Assessment

The Health Needs Assessment Protocol should be approximately 2,500 words (+/- 10% words). It is recommended that the format below is followed, and that appropriate referencing and attention to writing are used throughout.