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Hippo Therapy. Healing Children with Horses
Hippo Therapy
Name
Institution Affiliation
Hypo Therapy
Hippo Therapy: Healing Children with Horses
Personal growth simply means helping the needy. I would like to volunteer as a hippo therapist assistant because I have an experience of seven years. At the same time, it will give me an opportunity to assist other needy people.
What is hippo therapy?
Hippo therapy is the using horses treatment methodic that includes training in physical, occupational, and speech-language purposes. I decided to help via horses right from my time as an elementary school pupil. After realizing that I was an unquiet and average kid who did not enjoy spending time in school, I was advised to attend horse therapy. This changed my life because it transformed me from a hyperactive student into a good one. The treatment was working!
Why hippo therapy?
It started when I was still in high school particularly when my mother told me about a hippo therapy school. I then agreed that it would be a perfect opportunity to help other children who were in need of special care.
Even if I am neither a doctor nor a Kinesiologist I now have a horse riding experience of ten years. To get the best from these beautiful animals, I opted to join a small group of Kinesiologists: tutors, parents and horse instructors. My colleagues used to argue that we are not profit-making teams. Instead, they joked that we are for debt purposes.
My main duty is to give exercises to the children who may choose to use horses to perform them. However, before moving children into therapy, we do some funny and recognition jobs, mostly through games like connect the Dots and Color inside the horseshoe and a diagram showing the parts of a horse. Such activities try to get our children familiarized with the parts of the horse. Our horses are Big Boy, Canciller and Dudú.
Once I realize that the child is ready to work with a horse, I repeat the previous exercises, but this time above the horse. If a child gives us a positive feedback at this stage, it becomes our bright moments. In fact, we celebrate our efforts as successful tutors. This happens especially when they do this task in a quick and comfortable manner.
I always speak about Arturo, a thirteen-year-old boy who was suffering from Down’s syndrome. His parents had already been to almost a hundred different types of treatments for its flexible ligaments and disability for picking up things.
When he was brought to us, we decided to give him a plastic ball and tighten up it a couple of times. It was very difficult to do this because he was so afraid of Big Boy – the oldest horse in the home.
At first, he thought that he would not concentrate on his duties. So, we decided to move forward and began teaching him the basic concepts of horse riding. Despite the fact that he is still attending our seasons, he has developed amazing skills using pencils. Nevertheless, his mother recently informed me that he has tremendously improved in math at school. I’m so proud of him.
In conclusion, I would like to say that our team does not levy charges for the seasons. Even if it is so challenging to bring up such a small home made hippo therapy centre, our success has been attributed to the parents whom we work with. They are so cooperative and have helped us to maintain our four-legged therapists through a constant provision of grass bales. If it were not for their understanding, we would not achieve anything.
Employment Relations Coursework Assignment – SEM B 2013
Employment Relations Coursework Assignment – SEM B 2013
(Name)
(Course)
(Institution)
What is meant by the term collective bargaining?
Evolution of the workplace relations between employees and employers led to the introduction of labour and trade unions to bargain on behalf of the employees and employers due to the weaknesses of the single employee to bargain for his or her employment terms sand conditions with the employer and also the weakness of a single employer to bargain effectively in the competitive market. Employers initially had immense powers to determine what terms to institute at the workplace and generally these terms did not favour the employees. Collective bargaining can thus be seen as the process through which terms of employment between the employer and the employees are negotiated, usually between labour union representing a group of employees and the employer or a trade union representing the employer. Among the employment terms negotiated under the collective bargaining include employment terms, conditions at the workplace that include safety and health or hygiene, workplace rules, wage rate and basic pay, work hours, vacation and sick leaves among other issues that might impact the employer-employee relations if not addressed. When a labour union engages in collective bargaining with the management of a firm or a company that employs its members, they establish an agreement referred to as a collective bargaining agreement. The agreement usually establishes employment rules for a set length of time, normally in terms of years and to review them both parties must be involved. The employees being represented by the union take care of costs of representation. It is important to note that employers are also represented in bargaining under their respective trade unions.
Why has the decentralisation of bargaining become a significant management objective?
Recent years have seen many economies and markets across the globe tend towards a decentralised collective bargaining strategy. While looking at the possible causes of decentralisation of bargaining in Europe, Katz (2005) argues that it is no longer relevant to refer to employment systems with the term “national systems” because there has been a huge disparity and variation in the arena of employment practices. Katz further questions whether the decentralisation is caused by stakeholder-focused model or shareholder-based approach. However, dynamics in the marketplace and a recent paradigm shit in the internal corporate human resources management function have played a major role in decentralisation of bargaining. Therefore, in cases where bargaining has been characterised by individual wage agreements there have been effects of moderate wage developments as opposed to situations where agreements are made at the production unit stage or even those made with individual firms where wage moderation effect is not witnessed as argued by Marginson and Keith (2002). As an effect of this decentralization, flexibility has increasingly become part of collective bargaining. With respect to why decentralization of bargaining has become an important objective for management, there are two dimensions to provide factors that lead to this. There are external factors and internal factors with respect to the organization or company.
A major factor on the internal perspective is the rigidity in nominal wages and contractual scales, which are caused by variations in employee qualifications. For instance, some employees may have high levels of qualifications while others may have low qualification levels and these diversities may call for decentralised approach in collective bargaining for employment terms. Wolfgang (2003) argues that in cases where collective bargaining is used and the employees have low levels of qualifications, the resulting agreements are characterized by very inflexible collective wage agreements.
Employers have increasingly made decentralization part of the management objective as a way of gaining from the various advantages that may not be available to individual employers. One of the factors that are external in nature relates to the operations of the state and labour unions, which presented a considerable threat to the employers through the pressure they unleashed and the demands they made. To gain from the advantage of representation, companies make it among their objectives to decentralize the bargaining. Establishing multi-employer collective bargaining associations brings an advantage of increased strength in lobbying with the government or employee labour unions.
In addition to the strength in bargaining, another pull factor for decentralisation the fact that bargaining through multi-employer association provides a sense of solidarity and shared moral cost. Besides, without decentralization there is likelihood of strong labour unions intruding into workplace issues thereby threatening or compromising managerial prerogatives. Decentralization has also been driven by the fact that it is easier for employers to lobby governments and other public organs than they would achieve if they had acted alone.
Cost as a subject and factor in the matter cannot be ignored. It can be viewed from different angles, which end up with indications that decentralization helps in cost management. To elaborate on this, and considering that some organizations may be strong while others are weak, decentralisation of bargaining is important in stabilising pressures that accompany labour costs. This is achieved through enforcement of wage floors, which in turn helps in removing wages from the list of items of competition.
With myriad of advantages associated with decentralization of bargaining that leads to generation of collective goods flow for the member employers, there are also challenges that come with employers who do not want to join but rather opt to free ride. Those who free ride do not want to take responsibilities that go along being a member of a particular association yet benefit from not only spill over but also the established wage floors. Sheldon and Louise (2004) argue that such employers present another challenge which relates to other members struggling to determine what inducements to use to attract free riders and other non-joiners.
Even though decentralisation has recently become an important aspect of most management objectives, literature and studies carried out (e.g. Sheldon & Louise 2004) show that it poses serious challenges for employer associations and these challenges include how to deal with free rider issue, reduction of the sense of collective identity, decreased attraction of union’s traditional collective goods, increase in exigency and range of specific member goods and the accompanying increase in the costs of servicing or facilitating them.
Reference:
Harry C. Katz (2005). The Causes and Consequences of Increased Within-Country Variance in Employment Practices. British Journal of Industrial Relations Volume 43(4): 577–583
Marginson, P. & Keith, S. (2002) European Collective Bargaining: A Virtual Prospect? Journal of Common Market Studies Volume 36(4): 505–528
Sheldon, P. & Louise, T. (2004) Business or association? The strategic responses of employer associations to the decentralisation of bargaining in Australia. Economic and Labour Relations Review Vol 15 (1)
Wolfgang, O. (2003) Decentralising Wage Bargaining in Germany – a way to increase employment? CESIFO working paper no. 1069 category 4: Labour Markets
HIPAA Security Practices and Policies for Small Providers
HIPAA Security Practices and Policies for Small Providers
Insert Name
CSIA 412Introduction
As of 2005, it is required that all health practitioners protect their security of their patients’ electronic records through the use of practices and procedures that protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information (AMA, 2015). In addition to protecting the security of electronic records stored within their own system network, practitioners must also ensure that any information shared through electronic submission with outside sources is also secure. Such a task can seem daunting to a new health professional who has never before ensured compliance with such standards and if the 2013 audit performed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’(HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) is any indication, many small healthcare practitioners have struggled in all three safeguard areas addressed by HIPAA’s security standards (Medical Economics, 2013).
Assisting the physician
HIPAA’s Security Rule has three safeguard requirements: administrative safeguards, physical safeguards, and technical safeguards. In addition to the safeguards there are also policy and procedure standards as well as organizational requirements. Beneath each of these components of security, there are required and addressable standards and according to HHS (2007), required entities are standards with which providers must comply while addressable requirements are vetted through an assessment to determine whether the requirements are reasonable and appropriate given the size of the practice and the size, cost, and technical requirements of the security program needed. I would provide him with an outline of the security rule written in laymen’s terms, including a detailed outline of the five major components of security and after providing the physician with these outlines, I would then perform a risk management analysis in order to identify the current weaknesses and strengths in their system.
The risk analysis is a standard that is required under the administrative safeguards and is the first action I would take within the company’s network in order to not only ensure the presence of an electronic health record system but also to ensure that it is appropriately encrypted and secured. Performing a risk analysis helps to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of electronic protected health information (ePHI) and assists in establishing risks that decrease the opportunity for these records to be attacked by malware (HealthIT, 2014). Each risk analysis must include the potential risks and vulnerabilities to all forms of ePHI the company creates, receives, maintains, or transmits and applies to all forms of media that is in office or accessed off-site (HealthIT, 2014). The risk analysis vets all access points as well as any information that pertains to the health services provided including appointment times and dates. After vetting the computer system network, employees, and previous record-keeping methods, I would then provide the physician with a detailed report of my findings and suggestions for addressing potential risks and threats.
Advising the physician
Providing the physician with the Security Rule in laymen’s terms in order to increase their understanding and performing a risk analysis are simple first steps to ensuring that the physician is not only aware of what is required, but also that they are aware of how they currently measure up. In order to advise the physician on how to become compliant with HIPAA’s security rule, I would take them through the results of their risk analysis standard-by-standard and provide them with solution suggestions along the way. I would ensure that my advice was given in laymen’s terms while also providing the physician with a graphic organizer/table that would enable them to follow along, ask questions, and strengthen their understanding of where their business currently stands and the steps they can take to improve their standing.
Three most important requirements
The three most important requirements I would bring to the physician’s attention are the sanction policy, data backup plan, and facility security plan. I believe that these three are the most important requirements because they not only ensure the security of ePHI but they also create a culture of privacy for patient records. By ensuring that the staff complies to rules set in place and that they are aware of their personal responsibility through sanctions, companies ensure that a higher level of detail and care is placed upon the handling and maintenance of patient records. In addition, a data backup plan ensures that all data is accessible even in case of outside harm inflicted upon the primary data source while ensuring that the facility is secure lessens the opportunity that hardware will be tampered with or stolen. The first line of defense is always a good offense and so by ensuring that primary security is in place and maintained, companies provide fewer opportunities for security breaches.
Conclusion
The first steps to ensuring compliance is ensuring understanding and knowledge of the standards addressed by HIPAA’s security standards, knowing that it applies to any entity using electronic records, and knowing the five components that should make up the company’s security infrastructure. By ensuring a knowledge and understanding of the rule itself, practitioners can then create in house documents and policies that ensure compliance by outlining in detail the part that each team members plays. The risk analysis and the actions that result aid the health practice in not only being compliant but also in securing their networking and providing continued access to their consumers. Finally, by instituting a culture that values privacy and security, health practitioners create a system that allows for peace of mind and efficient operations.
References
American Medical Association. (2015). Security standards and risk analysis. Retrieved from: http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/physician-resources/solutions-managing-your-practice/coding-billing-insurance/hipaahealth-insurance-portability-accountability-act/security-standards.page?
HealthIT. (2014 February 20). Security risk analysis. Retrieved from: http://www.healthit.gov/providers-professionals/video/security-risk-analysis
Providers stumble after recent HIPAA audits. (2013). Medical Economics, (11), 14.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2007). Security standards: Implementation for the small provider. HIPAA Security Series. Retrieved from: http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/administrative/securityrule/smallprovider.pdf