Essay on Weekly Journal and SWOT Analysis

Weekly journal

A Journal is a documentation that allows one to remind their actions over the week, which helps change our notion and perspective (Houston 2019). As an intern, journals are essential elements that play an integral role in remembrance of crucial facts that may serve important in many aspects, even decision making significantly later (Master of Social Work | Academics | School of Social Work. 2020). Also, journals help us connect with our lives and reflect our decisions, as discussed by (Why We Should All Start Keeping a Weekly Journal 2020).

Weekly Journal of my Internship

The weekly journal from week 4 to week 7

Week 4

My fourth week at The Heart Foundation has been exciting. This week was the first time, and I was expecting a lot to exercise my duties as a coordinator, finally what I had learned would be put to practice. I was struggling to get the names and interacting with the individuals I was assigned with little success.

By the end of the fourth week, however, I had already known more than half of the tram. Since the internship had not started initially, I spent most of my time interacting with my team and establishing social skills.

Week 5

The internship program commenced at the beginning of my fifth week, and I was assigned to coordinate 42 doctors at the foundation. It seemed like a monumental task, but I knew I would manage.

My role was guidance and supervision. Being an intern with no experience, it was tough, but I managed the task. It is always good to exercise and gain experience.

Week 6

My sixth week started in a hectic way. We had two critical cardiovascular patients. As an intern, I was sent to one of the stations where the surgery was being done to ensure everything runs smoothly. I took the turn to supervise the station for the rest of the week.

The week was so hectic, but I was posted back to my initial working post by mid-week. It was such a relief because the weather at the station was severe. The week was also feverish as we were planning an event to raise funds for children with cardiovascular complications and could not afford to cater to their bill.

Week 7

Week seven was tough, as anticipated. The event had been purposely planned to raise funds to support children with cardiovascular complications, and self-awareness campaigns were finally here. We raised awareness among the community about cardiovascular diseases, which was our specialty. Also, we spoke of stigmatization that comes along with having kids with cardiovascular complications.

After the event, we also managed to raise 200,000$, which was our target. It was fulfilling because, finally, some children would have to see through the next day. I was satisfied with the effort I had placed in helping children with complications.

SWOT Analysis

Name of the company: The Heart Foundation

The organization mentioned above offered me an internship as an outreach coordinator. The Heart Foundation is a non-profit organization that deals with health-related issues and specializes in cardiovascular diseases. The heart foundation is aimed at fighting cardiovascular diseases through research, treatment, and awareness creation. SWOT analysis is a tool that helps organizations to analyze their organization by mapping out the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats being faced by an organization at a particular time.

Strengths

Being among the leading organization specializing in cardiovascular disease prevention and treatment, the Heart Foundation has numerous strengths. The organization is well branded and has employed a highly skilled workforce from renowned medical universities. Not only do they hire the best but also give those two weeks of training before they start dealing with patients directly. The high investments placed to sharpen the worker’s skills have made the workers dedicated to their work hence improving customer satisfaction (Leiber, Stensaker & Harvey 2018).

The organization had a unique integrated record-keeping system. Every data is stored both as a soft copy and hard copy for faster retrieval. The organization works with several IT companies to ensure the smooth running of the systems. The system also notifies the suppliers on what to be delivered in a specific period of time (Leiber, Stensaker & Harvey 2018). There is a lot of unity among members, and communication is significant apart from the time the organization is under pressure due to overcrowding. The management works as one to achieve the common goal of saving a life. It has also set aside an emergency travel car to move doctors from one station to another. This aspect makes travel faster and convenient.

 Weakness

Despite having a high rating, the organization has its weakness. The first one being overcrowding brought about by the high customer satisfaction of the people. This fact is being checked into as the organization looks forward to building another block. The high cost of medical services in the organization shuts out the local community since it is located in a village characterized by low-income citizens.

The shortage of nurses was another challenge I observed during my internship program, primarily in the substations. This needs to be addressed in order to maintain its status as the organization continues to grow. Other than the shortage of nurses, the surrounding community was not proper represented as a stakeholder of the organization (Vlados & Chatzinikolaou 2019). The heart foundation also placed their bases in a very remote area, which were sometimes impossible to get to. I remember a time we lost a patient just because of the poor road and weather conditions was among my worst day during my internship period. The satellite hospitals also lack backup generators, which makes it impossible to install intensive care units. As a result of this, patients are forced to transfer to the headquarters hence contributing to overcrowding.

Opportunities

To ease the burden, the organization is having; the organization can collaborate with other companies that deal with the same issue. This aspect will not only reduce overcrowding but also encourage the sharing of ideas among the medics and improve their services as well. The organization can again try to collaborate with the current government for grants and health subsidies. They should also consider expanding the headquarters to accommodate more patients. The organization should come up with ways of bringing the local community on board, maybe by coming up with projects that directly improve the community’s livelihood. This aspect will also help them to market and also create a self-awareness platform on cardiovascular diseases (Leiber & Harvey 2018).

There is an opportunity if the organization not only puts its focus on cardiovascular diseases but also on other lifestyle diseases. This will give them an upper hand over its competitors who have specialized in heart diseases alone since most lifestyle diseases are directly linked to cardiac health. A collaborative effort to assess and address local needs could result in a more far-reaching approach by the critical stakeholder (Leiber & Harvey 2018). After determining, there is a need to introduce outpatient services, the elderly department, and dialysis since most patients suffered kidney problems.

Threats

Competition from other organizations has been a significant threat. This could be countered by improving the advertisement done on a different media platform. Some of the companies have already merged and stands a better chance of getting government funding. This aspect makes their services cheaper than what we offered, as discussed by (Nash, Manning & Heiser 2019). From the year financial report, taxes had taken a good fraction of the income generated. The situation could have been better if the governments offer a tax waiver for health.

Fall off of sponsors is another threat to the organization’s operation. This directly affects the effectiveness of the organization’s hospitals and increase health care costs in the facilities. The other danger was harsh weather conditions in some stations, making some employees hesitate to report to such regions upon posting. Override by some government agencies is also a threat to the organization. This leaves some of the departments crippled and unable to sustain them, especially when the government takes over a specialist. This fact goes a void in the organization as the government can give better offers than the organization for a similar task as per (Nash, Manning & Heiser 2019).

References

Houston, M. (2019). Mikel Houston Thesis. Pdf.

Leiber, T., Stensaker, B., & Harvey, L. C. (2018). Bridging theory and practice of impact evaluation of quality management in higher education institutions: a SWOT analysis. European Journal of Higher Education, 8(3), 351-365.

Master of Social Work | Academics | School of Social Work. (2020). Retrieved October 23, 2020, from http://www.bu.edu/ssw/academics/msw/

Nash, M. M., Manning, M. R., & Heiser, E. J. (2019). Applying Lewin’s Force Field Theory to Impact Organizational Change. Edward Elgar Publishing.

Vlados, C., & Chatzinikolaou, D. (2019). Towards a restructuring of the conventional SWOT analysis. Business and Management Studies, 5(2), 76-84.

Why We Should All Start Keeping a Weekly Journal. (2020). Retrieved October 23, 2020, from https://medium.com/live-your-life-on-purpose/the-value-of-a-weekly-journal-2b37f03e203e#:~:text=Writing%20them%20in%20a%20journal,us%20to%20grow%20as%20people.