MPH5268 Financial Management in Health Care

Assessment 1b: Development activities - Overview

Assessment overview

This assessment task requires you to demonstrate a sound understanding of financial statements by undertaking an in depth analysis of a health related organisation of your choice using ratio analysis as the primary analytical tool.

Learning Outcomes

The purpose of this assessment task is for you to:

1.  Apply the accounting terminologies, concepts & process that underpin the preparation of key financial statements

2. Analyse and interpret the statutory financial statements prepared and used by health care

Assessment details

Definition: Development activities are a range of activities that are designed to develop professional competence in the field of study.

Important Note

Many students find tasks of this kind quite challenging. Applying the concepts covered in the text and these Notes to a 'real' set of data is not as simple as you may expect! You may find it helpful to create an Excel spreadsheet to perform your calculations, and then to cut and (special) paste your final work to Moodle to retain the formatting from Excel. Please try to avoid using an attachment if possible, but if you feel the need to do this, please include the spreadsheet as an Appendix. In reporting the calculations that you perform, there is no need to show more than one (or possibly two) decimal points.

Task overview

This task focuses on understanding the structure and composition of financial statements and interpreting those statements using various accounting and financial management techniques. The task is relatively technical and will require a sound understanding of the material covered in teaching weeks 5 and 6.

Task detail

Obtain the financial statements for one or two health service organisations that you are interested in. All public health services publish their financial statements (as part of the Annual Report) on their web pages.

If you choose ONE organization:

Calculate at least 6 ratios for each of two consecutive financial years, making sure that you select a range of performance, profitability and liquidity ratios. Identify, interpret and discuss any significant trends in overall financial performance, activity or liquidity over the two periods you are examining.

If you choose TWO organizations:

Calculate a number (at least 6) ratios for each of the health service organisations you select. Make sure that you use the same financial year for each entity, and that you choose a selection of activity, profitability and liquidity ratios. Interpret and discuss the ratios you have calculated. What do they suggest about differences in performance for the two entities?

When posting this online task, please identify the health service organisations you are looking at. Please do not post the full statements to Moodle. Just post the ratios you have calculated and answers to the above questions.

[Note: the technical content for this assessment constitutes a substantial portion of 'Theme 1 and as such is a very important part of the course]

All work that includes the intellectual property (authored material) of others (including books, journal articles, magazines, news articles, images, tables, websites, social media, etc.) must be given appropriate attribution.

You must cite all of your sources using the Vancouver referencing style.

Additional information & resources

The following resources will assist you with this assessment.

Monash University resources

Research and Writing for Assignments. This website provides information and links to:

understanding the assignment finding and evaluating information critical thinking and planning writing

academic integrity and referencing.

Critical thinking. This page provides information about learning to become a critical thinker, and how to practice critical thinking skills.

References

1. Skills You Critical Thinking [Internet]. 2019 [cited 22 May 2019]. Available from https://www.skillsyouneed.com/learn/critical- thinking.html

Assessment criteria & rubric

Assessment criteria

Your work will be graded according to the following criteria:

1. Quality of analysis
2. Evidence of research
3. Clarity of written expression
4. Referencing