HLTH 1015 Week 2 Evidence-Based Self-Assessment Example

Strengths With Receipts: A Self-Assessment in Which Every Claim Comes With an Occasion, a Witness and a Result

Student Name

Walden University

HLTH 1015: Exploring Your Path: Foundations Across Fields

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Strengths With Receipts: A Self-Assessment in Which Every Claim Comes With an Occasion, a Witness and a Result

Purpose and Method

A self-assessment is easy to write and hard to trust. Most people can list strengths, such as being organized, a good communicator or a team player, but a reader has no way to check them. This self-assessment follows one rule: every strength I claim must come with an occasion when I showed it, a person who saw it and a result that someone else could confirm. Claims I could not support that way were moved to a separate section as beliefs to test, not strengths. I also include two weaknesses with the same evidence, because a self-assessment that finds only strengths is not an assessment. The purpose is to judge my fit for health services management, the field I named in Week 1, using evidence from six years as a hospital outpatient pharmacy technician.

To keep myself honest, I used a structured format. Each entry has four parts: the strength stated as a behavior, the occasion with an approximate date, the witness by role, and the result, preferably something counted. Career researchers note that people's beliefs about their own abilities shape the careers they pursue, whether or not those beliefs are accurate (Lent et al., 1994). Evidence is the way to check whether my beliefs are accurate before they steer a career change.

Strength 1: Finding the Cause of a Recurring Problem

Behavior. When a problem repeats, I look for what causes it rather than fixing each case.

Occasion. In the spring two years ago, our pharmacy was discarding expired stock every month, mostly from the same group of slow-moving medications. Instead of pulling expired items each month, I compared three months of discard logs with our reorder settings and found that the reorder quantities for 14 medications had been set when a large clinic still sent us its patients. That clinic had moved its patients to another pharmacy a year earlier.

Witness. The pharmacy manager, who approved the new reorder settings.

Result. After the settings were changed, the monthly discard log for those 14 medications went from an average of about 30 items to fewer than five over the following six months, according to the log the manager reviews. The manager asked me to do the same review for the refrigerated stock.

Strength 2: Training New Staff So They Can Work Without Me

Behavior. I teach new staff in a way that lets them handle tasks alone quickly.

Occasion. Last year I wrote a two-page guide to the five insurance rejection codes we see most often and what to do about each, after noticing new technicians asked the same questions every shift. I used it to train three new technicians.

Witness. The lead technician who schedules training, and the three new technicians.

Result. The lead technician told me the three needed fewer days of shadowing than the previous group, and the guide is now part of every new technician's first week. I cannot count the days myself, so the result rests on her report, which I note as a limit of this evidence.

Strength 3: Calm Communication With Upset Patients

Behavior. I can explain a delay to an upset patient without making the situation worse.

Occasion. This happens weekly, usually when a prescription is held for prior authorization. One example: a patient was angry that his blood pressure medication was not ready; I explained what the insurer needed, called the prescriber's office while he waited, and gave him a three-day supply under our pharmacy's policy.

Witness. The pharmacist on duty, who approved the short supply.

Result. The patient returned the next week and asked for me by name. This is the weakest evidence of the three strengths, because it rests on one example and a patient's preference. I include it because the pattern is weekly, but a reader should weigh it lightly.

Two Weaknesses

Weakness 1: I avoid conflict with coworkers. When a coworker repeatedly skipped the end-of-shift count last year, I did the count myself for two months instead of raising it. The manager found out from the count logs, not from me. A manager in health services has to address performance problems directly, and this is the clearest gap between my current habits and the role.

Weakness 2: I have never managed a budget. I have changed reorder settings, but I have never been responsible for a budget line or explained spending to anyone. The Occupational Outlook Handbook lists managing finances among the main duties of medical and health services managers (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, n.d.), so this is a gap I need to close with coursework and, if possible, a small budget responsibility at work.

Beliefs to Test Rather Than Strengths

Two things I believe about myself did not meet the evidence standard. I believe I would enjoy leading a team, but I have never led one, so I cannot claim it. I also believe I would be comfortable with data and spreadsheets beyond inventory, but my only evidence is one discard analysis. Both go into my plan for later weeks as things to test, for example by asking to lead a small project or taking an introductory data course. Interest inventories, such as those based on Holland's types, can suggest fields where people with similar interests are found (Holland, 1997), but they cannot tell me whether I have the skills. Only evidence can do that.

Taken together, the evidence supports a fit with the problem-solving and training parts of health services management, and it exposes two clear gaps: addressing conflict directly and handling money. That is a more useful conclusion than a list of adjectives, because it tells me what to work on next.

I also asked my pharmacy manager to read this self-assessment and tell me whether anything was overstated. She agreed with the first two strengths, questioned the third as too dependent on one patient, and added one I had not listed: that I document my changes so others can follow them. I have not added it as a strength yet, because I want to find a second witness first.

References

Holland, J. L. (1997). Making vocational choices: A theory of vocational personalities and work environments (3rd ed.). Psychological Assessment Resources.

Lent, R. W., Brown, S. D., & Hackett, G. (1994). Toward a unifying social cognitive theory of career and academic interest, choice, and performance. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 45(1), 79-122. https://doi.org/10.1006/jvbe.1994.1027

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (n.d.). Medical and health services managers. Occupational Outlook Handbook. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/management/medical-and-health-services-managers.htm