Instruction
This assignment involves surveying a neighborhood. For healthcare administrators to be effective leaders, they must know and understand the community they serve. Often times, healthcare administrators must conduct community needs assessments for funding purposes. A windshield assessment is a very simple process for gathering information about a neighborhood/community or region and can be the preliminary step to a community needs assessment. Please follow the process described below.
Instructions:
Select a rural or underserved neighborhood/community.
Do not select the neighborhood/community where live or one that is familiar to you. The objective is to explore a new area.
Allow an hour to an hour and a half and if possible, ask someone to drive you so that you can take notes. If you are unable to find someone to drive you, you may record your findings on your cell phone instead of writing it down and transcribe later. (Safety first)
It is recommended that you do this during daylight hours especially in neighborhoods that you are not familiar to you.
Drive slowly from street to street and take notes or record the following:
Churches, stores, schools, office buildings, bus stops, clinics, other health care facilities, government facilities, post offices, pools, walking trails and/or other areas of interest.
Take photos of the area and make note of the lay out.
Once you are back home while the information about the neighborhood is still fresh on your mind:
Make a map of the area and place the sites that you found within the map. (you may use the pictures you gathered)
Research the health care facilities, government facilities and other resource agencies on the internet and learn as much as you can about them. Discuss the services and facilities (or the lack of these services, facilities and resources) within your written assessment of your findings.
In a narrative format (minimum 1000 words) answer the following questions:
Were there sidewalks?
Did the neighborhood appear safe, i.e. unattended dogs, dilapidated buildings?
What resource service agencies are available in that neighborhood?
What services do these agencies provide based on your internet search?
Were there any health care facilities?
What can you deduce about health care access in that neighborhood based on your internet search?
What other interesting facts did you notice?
How can you utilize the information you discovered as a healthcare administrator?