Personal Values and Public Health Values
Order Instructions:
To prepare for this Discussion, bring to mind the mission and vision statements you reviewed last week as well as the values you have seen exemplified in the public health field. What do you consider the main values of public health? Do you see areas of alignment between the explicit or implicit values of public health organizations and the values expressed by you and your classmate? Do you see any conflicts among them?
This is the Mission and vision statements on last week:
Mission and Vision of Public Health
Most of the vision and mission statements I read have some similarities. The visions and mission provide the desired expectation of the organization. Most of them focus on providing quality healthcare through various interventions (Collins & Porras, 1996). They also provide insights on the prevention strategies the organization have embraced to improve patient heath outcome. They also highlight on the commitment of the staffs to ensure that quality healthcare is provided. In general, the vision and mission focus on the aims, goals and objectives of the health facilities.
‘Future of the Public’s Health in the 21st Century’ provides various findings and recommendations. The most interesting finding that interests me is the fact that increased insurance coverage will help to reduce ethnic and racial disparities in accessing to health care services. Furthermore, this will help reduce disparities that have been experienced in mortality and morbidity among various ethnic groups (Gostin, Boufford & Martinez, 2004). On the other hand, the recommendation that interested me is ensuring lifelong learning on nurse practitioners. This will help to improve quality of care in health facilities. Furthering on these findings and recommendations will further the mission and vision of health in terms of ensuring equality in accessibility to healthcare. It will also help to reduce the number of death in future due to increased accessibility to healthcare and competent nurse practitioners.
If individuals in public health organization do not know what is mission and vision, healthcare services will not meet the expected threshold. Vision and mission statement provide a sense of direction to the leaders and staffs. Therefore, lack of knowledge will make it difficult for the health facilities to operate efficiently as they will not have objectives, aims or goals. The implication is poor quality healthcare.
Answer the following Questions:
1. Briefly explain what led you to choose public health and where you want to take your career.
2. Discuss any ways in which you believe your own personal values align with the values held within the public health profession, and or in which these values might not be in alignment with your own. Consider what you are passionate about; what has framed your perspective.
3. Discuss at least two of your colleagues’ responses, identifying the aspects you found most intriguing, surprising, thought-provoking, or otherwise noteworthy. What did you learn from each of these postings that helped shed further light on your own values?
Here is two colleagues responses:
Colleague one
Mission and Vision Statements
The purpose of this discussion is to examine the mission and vision statements for public health and determine what commonalities exist. Secondly, I will analyze one of the recommendations in the readings for public health. Lastly, I will discuss the impact if an individual does not know what the organization’s mission and vision are.
Public Health Mission and Vision
Mission and vision statements set the stage for how an organization operates, and provides the framework or roadmap for all of the organization’s activities. Generally, vision statements define what an organization aspires to be, and mission statements outline how the organization will do that or what exactly they will do (Ebben, 2005). For public health organizations, the common theme in the vision is to see healthy communities or to be the voice for local health organizations. The mission statements are to “protect America from health, safety and security threats” (CDC, 2014) or to “…protect and improve the health of all people…” (NACCHO, April). So, to put the vision and mission into my own words for public health organizations, I would say the vision is “to advocate for healthy people in our communities” and the mission is to “protect the public health and support programs that advocate for better health and longevity.”
Findings and Recommendations
The Institute of Medicine made multiple findings and recommendations for public health organizations in the 21st Century. The finding that seems the most approachable is the first that describes how public health law at the local, county, state, and federal role is out of date and internally inconsistent. They recommend that the Department of Health and Human Services appoint a national commission to review all laws and provide guidance to improve and update public health regulations (Institute of Medicine, 2002). States need to be consistent about their public health policies, and continue to work with other communities to be as up-to-date as possible. Inconsistency among states can lead to public relations issues as well as be counter to public health goals. An example is the recent quarantine laws for ebola workers returning from West Africa – some states enacted these regulations and some did not. Many were critical of these policies as acting against public health interest (Drazen, et al., 2014).
Lastly, it is important that anyone in an organization be aware of the mission and vision for the organization. Without that knowledge, there is no guidance or framework for the work that one does every day. It must be clear to all public health officials about what the guiding principles of the organization are.
Colleague two:
The purpose of this discussion is to discover common themes in mission and vision statements and how they relate to public health, the future of public health, and the impact when those mission and visions are compromised.
Common Themes
A mission and vision statement is built on values. As companies are formed there is a base reason for needing the business or wanting to provide a service. In health care we can with certainty say that most facets of the industry want to help people be or feel better. From there we begin to develop our base for providing services and can build our mission and vision statement. After viewing several of the websites listed it was confirmed that many were formed from a base of basic values of equality, excellence, participation, respect, integrity, leadership science, and innovation. Within the mission and vision statements many of the same verbiage appeared including: partnership, promote, prevent, protect, safety, provides, improves, develops, and best outcomes. I would articulate the mission and vision of public health to read: Mission: to adequately provide health care opportunities to all citizens. Vision: through a collaborative effort with key stakeholders all aspects of health care prevention, maintenance, and outcomes will be critically evaluated to ensure the highest quality, safest, and most efficient care is provided to all citizens. As stated in The Future of the Public’s Health in the 21st Century, “health is a primary public good because many aspects of human potential such as employment, social relationships, and political participation are contingent on it” (p. 2).
Summary of Findings
As I prepare for my dissertation I have been torn between leadership and public health and the use of our health care system with so many compromised citizens. In The Future of the Public’s Health in the 21st Century, it was discovered that lack of or the inadequate health care coverage that many people have lead to undiagnosed and untreated conditions that lead to societal constraints. As we consider equality for all how does that look in a country that is built on freedom, business, and the ability to be successful? Why are we allowing the health care sector to be run as a free market where competition drives costs? We are talking about people’s lives not selling cars. There must be a significant change if our country expects to be able to provide health care services to all those entering our system through the Affordable Care Act. Health care is a diverse and constantly changing environment with different needs at stages of birth, life, and death and so should the care and services we provide to our public. Acting on this recommendation would help to further the mission and vision of public health because we would be anticipating the needs of our citizens through a progressive and collaborative method. All governmental, regulatory, and health care leaders would be held accountable to meet the needs and respond to changes. The implications for public health organizations that do not have a mission or vision include not defining their objectives or strategies for success, a short and long-term structure, and a clear statement of how customers will be treated and what they can expect (IOM, 2002).
Article:
Course Text: Influencer: The New Science of Leading Change
Part 1, “The New Science of Leading Change”
Chapter 1, “Leadership is influence”
Part 1 introduces the purpose of the book and how effective leaders can lead change through influence. Then, Chapter 1 personalizes the discussion by examining case studies in leadership and what you can do to become a more skilled and effective leader.
Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R., & McKee, A. (2001). Primal leadership: The hidden driver of great performance. Harvard Business Review, 79(11), 42–5 1.
Please apply the Application Assignment Rubric when writing the Paper.
I. Paper should demonstrate an excellent understanding of all of the concepts and key points presented in the texts.
II. Paper provides significant detail including multiple relevant examples, evidence from the readings and other sources, and discerning ideas.
III. Paper should be well organized, uses scholarly tone, follows APA style, uses original writing and proper paraphrasing, contains very few or no writing and/or spelling errors, and is fully consistent with doctoral level writing style.
IV. Paper should be mostly consistent with doctoral level writing style.
SAMPLE ANSWER
Personal Values and Public Health Values
Individuals differ in their personal values and this explains why they end up making the choices they make in life. This discussion explains to the reasons that led to my choice of public health and where I want to take the career. It also deliberates on how personal values align with values held within public health profession and provides a discussion of responses of two of my colleagues.
I decided to choose public health to help in providing quality healthcare to the members of the public. Many issues are not moving on well in most of the public health facilities that compromise of quality. Many of the health practitioners work in deplorable conditions impeding delivery of quality health care. I believe that I will help address some of these issues to elevate the quality of care provided in health facilities. I have ambitions of pursuing this career to the doctorate level. I want t acquire high level of skills and knowledge to be able to address the many issues that face public health.
I do believe that to large extend my personal values align with the values held within the public health profession. As a health professional, you must understand the requirements and the standards to meet when delivering healthcare (Collins & Porras, 1996). It is therefore very important to have a personal desire and a sense of commitment to providing health care something I feel cuts across many of the public health professionals. Personally, I value life and I will do all that I can to my best of my ability to help any human being lead a healthy life.
My colleagues have as well highlighted on various issues that are important in health. One of the most intriguing aspects in my colleagues’ response is that some of the public health laws at various levels have inconsistencies (Goleman, Boyatzis & McKee, 2001). This grave mistake may compromise delivery of health care. Another issue worth noting is that societal constraints have been brought by inadequate and lack of coverage. Many people have been undiagnosed and missed treatment due to these inequalities. Therefore, from these two positing, I have learned that, it is important for any health facility to have vision and mission to guide them as they provide healthcare. I have also learned that inequality deters accessibility to healthcare and therefore, efforts should be underway to eradicate these inequalities
References
Collins, J. C., & Porras, J. I. (1996). Building your company’s vision. Harvard Business Review, 74(5), 65-77.
Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R., & McKee, A. (2001). Primal leadership: The hidden driver of great performance. Harvard Business Review, 79(11), 42–51. https://hbr.org/2001/12/primal-leadership-the-hidden-driver-of-great-performance
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