Identifies your goals in healthcare

BHA 3202, Standards for Health Care Staff 1

Course Learning Outcomes for Unit II

Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:

4. Discuss the impact personal skills have on the workplace.
4.1 Describe the various types of personal goals that can affect professional development.

Course/Unit

Learning Outcomes
Learning Activity

4
Unit Lesson
Chapter 11
Unit II Essay

4.1
Unit Lesson
Chapter 3
Unit II Essay

Reading Assignment

Chapter 3: Setting Goals and Time Management

Chapter 11: Professionalism in Action

Unit Lesson

José has decided to apply for the position of healthcare administrator at his clinic. Jane suggested that he
should think about where he wants his career to go from the short-term to the long-term before he interviews
for the position she will be vacating next month. She has stressed to him that professionalism, and all that the
term implies, is the key characteristic that the healthcare administration position requires. José will need to
reflect on his goals and the manner in which he presents himself to his colleagues at the clinic.

In Chapter 3 of your textbook, we look at how to set goals and utilize time management skills to enhance our
skills, knowledge, and abilities in the healthcare administration field. Let us look first at the different types of
goals we can set, starting with the types of goals to consider:

• personal,
• educational,
• career, and
• community.

Personal goals are the things that make life interesting. We may want to learn to ski or try skydiving one day.
Having personal goals enhances one’s self-concepts and self-esteem. They can be as simple as going to a
new movie or planning for retirement.

Education and lifelong learning should be something all professionals keep in mind, and setting educational
goals is an important part of being a professional. Being in this program is clearly a part of an educational
goal that you have set for yourself. Being successful at meeting educational goals also tells others that you
are someone who can meet goals too.

UNIT II STUDY GUIDE
Goals and Professionalism

BHA 3202, Standards for Health Care Staff 2

Another type of goal the healthcare professional must address is the career goal. You have already
demonstrated that you have set a career goal by enrolling in this program and course. While these are clearly
educational goals, they actually are also career goals. As José is learning, advancing in his career at his
healthcare clinic is now a career goal of his and one that he needs to plan for carefully to ensure success.

José is wondering what exactly community goals are and if he has any and just does not know it. As Chapter
3 explains, we are all a part of a community, and we all contribute in some way to our communities. José is a
part of the healthcare clinic community because he and associates go out for dinner once a month and even
play on a softball team together. Belonging to one’s professional organization also is being a part of a
community, and having goals within such a community may mean planning to be the president of the
organization in 3 years or going to a conference on behalf of the organization in 1 year (Colbert & Katrancha,
2016; Porter-O’Grady & Malloch, 2015).

Once we think about the types of goals we need, we need to consider the timeframe to set for our goals.
There are three timeframes to consider:

• short-term,
• mid-range, and
• long-term.

Short-term goals are those that can be accomplished in half a year or less. Examples of short-term goals are
listed below.

• Personal: Lose 10 pounds in the next 4 months.
• Educational: Attend one continuing education seminar in the next month.
• Career: Apply for a new position as a healthcare administrator this week.
• Community: Join a healthcare administration association next month.

Mid-range goals are those that that take from 6 to 12 months to accomplish. Some may need renewing when
the year is over or may need to be changed if accomplished sooner than anticipated. Examples of mid-range
goals are listed below.

• Personal: Save to buy a new car in the next 10 months.
• Educational: Finish a Bachelor of Healthcare Administration program in the next 12 months.
• Career: Learn about the healthcare organization’s strategic plan for a new department in the clinic,

and apply for the position of healthcare administrator when it opens in 6 months.
• Community: Run for a seat on the town’s planning commission in the next election in 8 months.

The last timeframe for writing goals is long-term. These goals range anywhere from 3 to 5 years and can even
be as far out as 10 years in the future. Goals that far out are difficult to plan for accurately. Examples of long-
term goals are listed below.

Consider This!

José has always felt that he has enough education with his associate degree, but Jane has
mentioned to him that there is much more knowledge that he does not possess. José reads
one professional journal and two trade newsletters, so he feels he is keeping up, but he does
wonder what a bachelor’s degree has to offer him and if he should think about earning a
master’s degree too.

• What can José do to learn about the areas of healthcare administration in which he
lacks knowledge or experience?

• Are there any professional journals he might consider reading?
• Should he consider taking some continuing education courses offered by the local

healthcare administrator’s organization in town?

BHA 3202, Standards for Health Care Staff 3

• Personal: Enter a triathlon 3 years from now.
• Educational: Find a university that offers a master’s in business administration, and enroll 4 years

from now.
• Career: Become the chief business administrator for the local healthcare center 5 years from now.
• Community: Run for the state legislature 7 years from now.

Remember something very important. Goals are the results that we are trying to attain. They should not be
written in stone. They have to reflect the reality of our lives and the world around us. They should be
malleable and grow as we grow.

In Chapter 11 of our textbook, we learn about professionalism and what that term means. We see how ethical
behavior applies to the professional and learn about the unique world of health care to which the healthcare
professional belongs. There are many concepts the healthcare administrator has to consider, all of which add
up to providing the patient with the highest level of professional care possible. A few are listed below:

• certification,
• ethics,
• living wills,
• confidentiality,
• personal beliefs and morals,
• trust, and
• malpractice.

Medical ethics dictate all that the professional who cares for a patient does. Whether one is a physician,
nurse, or healthcare administrator does not matter. What matters most is that provided care is based on
established moral principles and is of the highest quality. How we conduct ourselves when faced with moral
issues, such as the brain-dead patient’s family that wants to pull the plug or the employee who refuses to
participate in an abortion based on his or her religious beliefs, is dictated by medical ethics.

José remembers a news story about a man who killed his wife because she had Alzheimer’s disease and was
slowly wasting away. His personal view was that he approved of what the man did and disagreed with the
resulting arrest and murder charges. Jane brought that memory back when they were talking about what the
role of a healthcare administrator could entail. She wanted José to think about what his role would be if a
family member asked a staff member about euthanasia for his sister who had Stage 4 breast cancer and was
slowly dying in severe pain. How he would support the staff member and the patient’s brother in a
professional and compassionate manner would lead to him listing his personal ethics and comparing them to
the standards of medical ethics.

Being a healthcare administrator and displaying professional behaviors means understanding the way the
healthcare organization runs. How is infection control established in a way that protects the patient as well as
the employee? How does one determine who receives what care in a disaster? What is the protocol for
protecting a patient who is the victim of sexual assault when the local media is requesting information?
Professional behavior is the guiding standard in all of these situations and more.

BHA 3202, Standards for Health Care Staff 4

As you do your readings for this unit and work on your assignment, keep in mind that the key themes of this
unit all will lead you forward in your career, regardless of where you are now. Identify your short-term, mid-
range, and long-term goals. Consider how the healthcare administrator behaves as a professional on a day-
to-day basis and stands professionally to lead the healthcare team in the times that test us all.

References

Colbert, B. J., & Katrancha, E. D. (2016). Career success in health care: Professionalism in action (3rd ed.).

Cengage Learning.

Kerasidou, A., Kingori, P., & Legido-Quigley, H. (2016). “You have to keep fighting”: Maintaining healthcare

services and professionalism on the frontline of austerity in Greece. International Journal for Equity in
Health, 15, 1–10.
https://libraryresources.columbiasouthern.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direc
t=true&db=a9h&AN=117162726&site=ehost-live&scope=site

Porter-O’Grady, T., & Malloch, K. (2015). Quantum leadership: Building better partnerships for sustainable

health (4th ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Suggested Reading

In order to access the following resource, click the link below.

The following reading is one that José found helpful in understanding how the healthcare administrator must
often make tough decisions about serving patients in times of strife.

Consider This!

Being a professional is not always easy. One thing that we rarely consider, though, is how to be
a professional in the face of adversity and disasters. With more and more disasters occurring
across the world, José must consider what the healthcare administrator’s role is in a crisis. He
must consider the obligation to patients, to the profession, and to himself.

Over the last decade, many countries have faced financial crises. A good friend of José’s is
from Greece, and he shared with José what it was like for the hospitals to not have enough
money to buy needed supplies or to pay employees because the government was slow in
reimbursing them.

As one of José’s goals was to read more professional journals, he found an article with relevant
information. In the article, Kerasidou et al. (2016) wrote about what it was like to keep
healthcare services working when the government is going bankrupt.

This has José thinking about what a professional healthcare administrator would do in such a
situation. How can one encourage employees to continue coming to work when they are not
being paid? How does one keep a healthcare clinic open with no funds to buy supplies? How
can one keep a professional attitude when the world seems to be crumbling? José realizes that
it is times like these that bring out the true knowledge, skills, and attitudes of a healthcare
administrator and show his or her true professionalism.

BHA 3202, Standards for Health Care Staff 5

Kerasidou, A., Kingori, P., & Legido-Quigley, H. (2016). “You have to keep fighting”: Maintaining healthcare
services and professionalism on the frontline of austerity in Greece. International Journal for Equity in
Health, 15, 1–10.
https://libraryresources.columbiasouthern.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direc
t=true&db=a9h&AN=117162726&site=ehost-live&scope=site

Learning Activities (Nongraded)

Nongraded Learning Activities are provided to aid students in their course of study. You do not have to submit
them. If you have questions, contact your instructor for further guidance and information.

To continue building your professional toolbox, do an online search, and find three types of certification that a
healthcare administrator might obtain. List the requirements for earning each type of certification that you may
be personally interested in obtaining.