Health Care Program

Setting Targets and Program Objectives

Imagine that you have been asked to explain to your colleagues in ten minutes how to set targets from program objectives. Develop an outline of the steps involved.

Inside a health organization program there are broader project goals and under them are the more specific objectives and targets that will serve as guide for the implementation of the program. First thing to consider is the identification of the problem or the immediate concern of the health organization such as reducing infant hospitalization and deaths. Secondly is identifying the target population or the recipient of the services by following this format: ‘By when, who will achieve what and by how much”. They must also remember to have SMART objectives meaning it should be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time bound which could focus on either improving or reducing an outcome. After these they could now consider the two types of objectives the Process Objectives and the Effect Objectives. Effect objectives pertain to program participants including the results of intervention, impact and outcome. Process objectives on one hand focus on the service utilization plan or the activities of the health care staff and the processes including what activity to do and how long or up to what extent it would be implemented.

The following is an example of outline of the steps involve in setting targets from program objectives.

A. Need Assessment and Target Setting: Reduce the infant hospitalizations and deaths. By 2014, five years from now incidences of hospitalizations and deaths of new born infants and those up to two years of age will significantly reduce by as much as 20%.

B. Program Development and Implementation: By 2014 health care staffs should have improve in their quality of services for infants including childhood immunizations, efficient hospital services and including medical care and campaigns.

C. Process and Impact Evaluations: Through the process evaluations the organization will know how efficient the health program is to its targeted population.

D. Setting Options: Having one or more options available for the program to choose if some ideas or services do not effectively meet the targets and goals.

E. Outcome Evaluation and Termination: Focusing on the effect objectives, the organization must identify the possible outcome and the extent or termination of the program if needed. If the program has a high success rate then it should be continuously implemented in a long period of time.

The Logistics of Healthcare Program Implementation

In what ways might each type of accountability be affected by or related to social marketing?

The logistics of a healthcare program is one of the most important aspects of its implementation. One of the best methods to promote the healthcare program is through the social marketing strategies. It is a method that aims to reach a wide number of audience or targets through the use of health campaigns and paid promotions. Like the classical marketing strategies it focuses on the four P’s namely promotion, place, price and product. Different from original social marketing the products being promoted here is the health services.

Social marketing should know its responsibility through the organizational accountability like fiscal, legal and efficiency accountability as well as service utilization accountability like coverage and impact accountability. In terms of fiscal accountability it entails the organization to make honest accounting of financial status of the organization. The program should also follow legal procedures approved by local and federal laws and should also be highly efficient in the use of resources. Furthermore the social marketing should identify its coverage or scope of services to the community and the impact it would make once implemented. Responsible social marketing involves considering these types accountability that can greatly affect the successful outcome of the operations.