To: Professor Morris
From: Emily Ayres
Re: Story Outline: Health South rehabilitation hospital in Huntington, W.Va.
Subject: I want to write an investigative story about the care patients receive in the hospital because it is important to make sure they are clean and healthy, and their families are paying money to have that service.
Scope: I have interviewed student nurses from Marshall University and nurses on staff at the hospital. I have also surveyed some of the patients on the care they have received.
Need: The investigative story is needed because the hospital has a lot of patients and is a successful business. We need to make sure the hospital is providing the service back to the people who are paying it money. HealthSouth also has 25 other locations across the nation, so if there are problems found in Huntington, then there may be other problems elsewhere, and that affects many people.
Methods: I am conducting research using formal face-face interviews with nurses and taking surveys of patients. I will also need to find documents to use as proof in my arguments. They will most likely be expense reports to find out how much the hospital is spending on nursing staff, care products, water and electricity. I would also like to get numbers on the ratio between patients and nurses to see if the hospital is understaffed or overbooked in patients, which are problems that could lead to poor patient care.
Sources: Former and current patients, current nursing staff and Marshall nursing students, plus documents.
Presentation: This investigative story will be going on my blog, but it also has the potential to be going into Marshall University’s school newspaper, The Parthenon.
Follow-up: This story has the potential to lead to a bigger story because HealthSouth has 25 other locations across the U.S. If patients aren’t receiving enough care in Huntington, a bigger investigation may need to be started to check the other places’ level of credibility.
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