College students are constantly stressed while balancing their coursework, personal life, relationships, jobs, and more. Whether they are in their last year trying to apply for jobs or post graduate programs or first-year students trying to acclimate to a new environment and a heavier course load, college students are under significant pressure. Stress can lead to deteriorating health habits including oral hygiene. To understand the relation between stress and oral hygiene among college students, this study explores selected students in Arizona and how their oral health has changed since starting college. In a survey of current Arizona State University students, the findings suggest there is a lack of oral health habits within the population and a misunderstanding of what constitutes proper oral hygiene. The study investigated health habits such as diet, exercise, and oral hygiene and how they correlated with the conceptions people had about what is considered correct oral care. Although oral care is extremely important, the conclusions indicate that educated populations, like college students, have not prioritized correct hygiene practices. The lack of oral health in college students can lead to further health problems highlighting the importance to promote proper oral hygiene practices.

The purpose of this project is to develop a risk assessment tool for the University of California, Riverside (UCR). UCR is health enterprise that manages operations under an environment of innate and uncontrollable risks. Therefore, a risk assessment tool is highly advisable under California State Laws and federal laws. In the case of overlapping laws, federal law will always prevail unless State law explicitly states otherwise. California Health Information Privacy Manual states that California must follow numerous state guidelines and a federal set of guidelines called HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996). HIPAA is put in place to protect and serve as an organizational tool to develop a stronger and more secure infrastructure of security measures within healthcare enterprises. Under HIPAA is a Security and Privacy Rule that was implemented by The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and will serve as the basis for the risk assessment tool I developed. The Security and Privacy Rule's main goal is to set a national standard of how electronic protected health information (ePHI) will be appropriately used and disclosed by organizations subject to this rule, also known covered entities. Covered entities include health plans, health care providers and health care clearinghouses unless specifically stated otherwise. Permitted uses and disclosures of PHI or ePHI are outlined in detail and covered entities are expected to follow all aspects of it that pertain to their role within a healthcare system. Under HHS, the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) strictly enforces the Security and Privacy Rules and can issue civil money penalties and/or other major consequences making this a sizable and critical issue in healthcare environments. Each risk and impact must be assessed to determine an overall risk score. This score will then determine what risks need to be immediately addressed and which risks are most critical to UCR. To do this, potential impacts were determined for each section. The impact score can be decided by using a chart that will be discussed in the development section. The likeliness of the risk can be determined by a UCR professional via the provided chart and an overall risk score can be assigned. From here, an action plan can be set and carried out to eliminate possible hazards and imminent risks. Once a Risk Assessment tool is developed, potential risks can be indentified and dealt with appropriately in regard to level of impact and the likelihood of the risk occurring. By reducing risk, a healthcare enterprise can gain greater financial stability, decrease loss and protect vital information that is critical to the success organization.

This study analyzes the various applications of Lean Methodologies in emergency departments (ED) from the years 2005 through 2010. These data were then used to create a predictive model that hospitals can use to assess the benefits of using lean within their ED. Metrics studied include 1) rate of patients that left the ED without being seen 2) length of stay and 3) overall patient satisfaction. These metrics were extracted from published studies and used to create a linear regression model, which could be applied to an ED to predict its status after implementing a lean project. After developing these formulas, they were applied to the ED of fictional hospital T-1 in order to predict benefit. After determining the approximate values for the post-lean metrics, an estimate of the financial benefit was developed in conjunction with a financial executive at Chandler Regional Medical Center, in Chandler, Arizona.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) was created in 2010 to ensure American Citizens to obtain healthcare in which one way is to apply for Medicaid as more persons became eligible under expansion of coverage. The policies concerning Medicaid expansion has not federally mandated that every state adopt Medicaid expansion by Supreme Court decision, therefore it has been questioned in its ability by the current presidential cabinet which has led the Republican House of Representatives to create reforms of the current health law. The reforms to Medicaid expansion included the use of block grants or per capita caps through the American Health Care Act (AHCA) in which either of the reform would give more power and funding rights to the states themselves. However, the Senate withdrew the bill before voting as majority did not agree with the provisions and wanted current health care law to remain as is. With this bill not having been passed, other options of reforms are going to be considered by the Republican House of Representatives and the President. In the meantime, it is evident that states that have not yet expanded Medicaid should apply for a waiver to adopt the Medicaid expansion policies. This is because under the ACA's Medicaid expansion there has been a decrease in uninsured persons nationally, including the state of Arizona.

The purpose of this study is to explore the possible factors that influence how patients rate their dentists in the underserved communities and how commonly each factors are mentioned in the articles found from the systematic review. PubMed was used to search the articles with the keywords categorized into 5 different groups, they were: dental/oral, underserved, patient satisfaction, services provided and America. The search resulted in 123 articles and after critical appraisal and review, 19 full text articles were determined to be fully relevant to this project. A table of summarized results from the articles was created and factors of satisfaction from the articles were translated into a category which then was categorize into broader category based on relatedness. Sub-categories that were mentioned at least five times in the articles were cost, insurance acceptance, communication, interpersonal skills, number of treatments, fear/worry/anxiety and pain. According to the findings, quality in terms of interaction and interpersonal relationship between patients and the dentists was most mentioned compared to other factors when it comes to patient satisfaction. Other factors mentioned were external factors, pain, continuity, access, cost, technical qualities, efficiency, convenience, availability and environment. The purpose of this study has been met. The results in this project suggest that dentists in underserved communities could focus on changing the way they deliver their service if they want to improve patient retention and satisfaction.