| Course | HA410 Health Care Leadership |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 6 |
| Paper type | Team charter |
| Length | About 850 words, 6 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | BS in Health Care Administration |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for HA410 Unit 6
Eleven Seats, Six Professions, No Direct Reports: A Team Charter for a Composite Hospital's Surgical Opioid Stewardship Team, Setting Out What It May Decide, What It May Only Recommend and Who Breaks a Tie
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
HA410: Health Care Leadership
Unit 6 Team Charter
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The hospital, the team, the defaults and the dates are composite and bracketed; the charter is a course model, not prescribing guidance.
1. Name and Sponsor
Surgical Opioid Stewardship Team. Sponsor: Chief Medical Officer. Team lead: [Name], PharmD, Clinical Pharmacy Manager.
2. Aim
By [date], [80] percent of discharge opioid prescriptions after laparoscopic cholecystectomy, laparoscopic appendectomy and inguinal hernia repair will fall within the hospital's default quantities, from a baseline of [34] percent.
3. Background
Studies of common general surgical procedures have found wide variation in discharge opioid prescriptions, with many patients prescribed far more than they use (Hill et al., 2017). Procedure-specific prescribing guidelines have reduced the amount prescribed without increasing patients' reported pain or requests for refills (Howard et al., 2018).
4. Scope
In scope: discharge prescriptions after the three procedures above for adults; default order sets; patient education at discharge; feedback reports to prescribers. Out of scope: chronic pain management; patients already taking opioids before surgery; emergency department prescribing; inpatient pain control.
5. Membership
1. General surgeon: brings prescribing practice; may lose prescriber discretion.
2. Anesthesiologist: brings perioperative pain plans.
3. Clinical pharmacist (lead): brings prescribing data and order set expertise.
4. Two surgical nurses: bring discharge teaching and patient calls.
5. Resident physician: writes most discharge prescriptions.
6. Physician assistant from surgery: writes discharge prescriptions on weekends.
7. Informatics analyst: builds order sets and reports.
8. Quality analyst: tracks measures.
9. Patient representative: brings the patient's view of pain and disposal.
10. Outpatient pharmacist: sees prescriptions filled and returned.
Every seat is listed with what that profession brings and what it stands to lose, because the losses predict where resistance will come from.
6. Authority
The team may decide on its own: patient education materials; content of feedback reports to prescribers; its own meeting schedule and work plan. The team may only recommend: default quantities in order sets, which only the pharmacy and therapeutics committee can adopt; any change to surgical department policy, which requires the chair of surgery. Tie-breaking: if the surgeon and pharmacist members disagree on a recommendation, the team records both positions and the chief medical officer decides within [two] weeks.
7. Operations
Meetings: every two weeks for [45] minutes, with an agenda sent [two] days ahead. Decisions: by consensus where possible; otherwise by majority of members present, with dissent recorded. Quorum: six members including at least one surgeon or physician assistant and the pharmacist. Communication: minutes within [three] days to members and the sponsor; a quarterly report to the pharmacy and therapeutics committee.
8. Measures
1. Percentage of discharge prescriptions within default quantities (outcome).
2. Average morphine milligram equivalents prescribed per procedure (outcome).
3. Refill requests within [14] days (balancing).
4. Patient-reported pain at the post-discharge call (balancing).
5. Percentage of patients receiving disposal instructions (process).
9. Timeline
Months 1 to 2: baseline data and proposed defaults. Month 3: committee approval. Months 4 to 9: implementation, monthly feedback to each prescriber and a midpoint review of the balancing measures. Month 10: report to the sponsor.
10. Resources
[Four] hours a week of informatics time; [two] hours a month of quality analyst time; printing for patient materials.
11. Ground Rules
Members speak for their profession's experience, not only their own. Prescribing data shown at meetings identify prescribers by code, not name, until the team agrees otherwise. Disagreements are about defaults and evidence, not about individual clinicians. Members who miss three meetings in a row are asked by the sponsor whether their department should name someone else.
12. Approval
Sponsor signature: ______ Team lead signature: ______ Date: [date]
Commentary
Why the charter matters for a team with no direct reports: none of the eleven members answers to the team lead, so the charter's authority must come from the sponsor and from members' agreement. Research on teams suggests that a clear direction, the right membership and an enabling structure set the conditions for good performance more than the leader's day-to-day coaching (Hackman, 2002). The charter tries to build those conditions in writing. Why the out-of-scope list carries weight: chronic pain and emergency prescribing are real problems, but including them would bring in more departments and slow the team down. Saying no in writing protects the aim. Why the balancing measures are there: surgeons will ask whether patients are suffering. Refill requests and reported pain answer that question with data rather than assurances. Why prescriber data stay coded at first: surgeons are more likely to engage with feedback reports when the first ones do not feel like public ranking. Identified reports can follow once the team trusts the data.
Why the tie-breaker is named: the most likely disagreement, between a surgeon's discretion and a pharmacist's defaults, could stall the team for months if no one is named to decide.
References
Hackman, J. R. (2002). Leading teams: Setting the stage for great performances. Harvard Business School Press.
Hill, M. V., McMahon, M. L., Stucke, R. S., & Barth, R. J. (2017). Wide variation and excessive dosage of opioid prescriptions for common general surgical procedures. Annals of Surgery, 265(4), 709-714. https://doi.org/10.1097/SLA.0000000000001993
Howard, R., Waljee, J., Brummett, C., Englesbe, M., & Lee, J. (2018). Reduction in opioid prescribing through evidence-based prescribing guidelines. JAMA Surgery, 153(3), 285-287. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamasurg.2017.4436
HA410 Unit 6 instructions, in plain terms
Unit 6 usually asks students to write a charter for a health care team or committee. Instructions commonly list a purpose or aim, scope, membership and roles, authority and decision rules, meeting operations, measures, timeline, resources and sponsor approval. Some prompts add a short commentary explaining the design choices. Support the charter with research on the team's clinical focus and a source on what makes teams effective, cited in APA format, and present the hospital as composite. Write it in the numbered format a hospital committee would recognize. Instructors often look closely at the authority section, since teams whose members report elsewhere fail most often when nobody has written down what they can actually decide.
How this HA410 Unit 6 example is built
The sample opens with the name, sponsor and an aim with a baseline and target. Background cites studies of surgical opioid prescribing and of procedure-specific guidelines. Scope lists what is in and what is deliberately out, such as chronic pain. Ten membership lines cover eleven seats, and the highlighted sentence explains why each lists what a profession stands to lose. The authority section separates decisions from recommendations and names a tie-breaker, with a margin note. Operations, measures including balancing ones, timeline, resources, ground rules and approval follow. A commentary citing research on the conditions that help teams succeed explains the design choices, from coded prescriber data to the named tie-breaker, with a margin note.
HA410 Unit 6 rubric: what earns full points
Team charter rubrics in HA 410 tend to award points for a clear aim, defined scope, appropriate membership, explicit authority, workable operations, meaningful measures, use of evidence and professional format. Aim points depend on a measurable target with a date. Scope points go to clear exclusions. Membership points reward the right professions with their roles. Authority points require decisions, recommendations and a tie-breaker. Operations points go to meeting rules and quorum. Measure points need outcome, process and balancing measures. Evidence points require clinical and team sources. Charters with a commentary explaining their choices tend to be graded highest, as the writer has shown an understanding of why each section is there rather than filling in a template.
HA410 Unit 6 help: mistakes that cost points
Charters often lose points by stating a vague purpose, such as improve opioid safety, with no measure or date. Another gap is a membership list without reasons. Some charters give the team authority it does not have, such as changing order sets without committee approval. Others leave out balancing measures, so worries about patient pain go unanswered. Write an aim with numbers, list exclusions, explain each seat, separate decisions from recommendations, name a tie-breaker and add balancing measures. Then explain your choices briefly. A charter the sponsor could sign as written is the goal. If members come from departments with competing interests, add ground rules that keep discussion on data and defaults rather than on individual clinicians.
Get an HA410 Unit 6 example written to your instructions
For a charter, the useful inputs are the problem the team exists to fix, the professions that should sit on it, and the Unit 6 instructions and rubric. From those, a complete charter with a decision rights table comes back in 24-48h. The first sample is free, and every seat is described by role. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
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HA410 Unit 6 questions, answered
Where can I find a free HA410 Unit 6 sample paper?
This page holds the complete HA410 Unit 6 team charter for a composite surgical opioid stewardship team, with authority, membership, measures and commentary, citing three sources. Your own team's charter can follow the same order.
What should a team charter include?
An aim, scope, membership, authority and decision rules, operations, measures, timeline, resources and sponsor approval.
What is a balancing measure for opioid stewardship?
A measure such as refill requests or reported pain that shows whether reducing prescriptions is harming patients.
Why separate decisions from recommendations in a charter?
Because teams often lack authority over policies or order sets, and confusing the two leads to conflict with the bodies that approve them.
How long is the HA410 Unit 6 charter?
About four pages in charter format, often followed by a page of commentary.