| Course | HA 620 Healthcare Economics, Finance, and Resource Management |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 7 |
| Paper type | Resource allocation memo |
| Length | About 780 words, 4 pages |
| Format | Business memo with analysis, APA 7 references |
| School | Herzing University |
| Program | MS in Healthcare Administration |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for HA 620 Unit 7
Memorandum
To: Capital Committee
From: Administrative Fellow, Finance and Strategy
Date: February 26, 2026
Re: Ranking of FY2027 capital requests against the $3.0 million available
The Constraint
The board has approved $3,000,000 for routine capital in fiscal year 2027. Five requests were submitted, totaling $4,505,000. At least $1,505,000 of requests cannot be funded this year, and the committee must decide which. Every request below meets a real need; the question is order, not merit, and a request deferred this year is not a request refused.
The Requests
1. Second CT scanner for the emergency department, $1,555,000; sponsor: imaging director. Produces faster emergency imaging, recaptures about 1,100 outpatient scans a year now referred out, and a seven-year net present value of about $1.04 million at 7%.
2. Outpatient infusion suite build-out and equipment, $720,000; sponsor: oncology service line director. Produces local infusion for patients now traveling 40 miles, with a contribution of about $505,000 a year above direct costs at projected volume.
3. Nurse call system replacement, $1,180,000; sponsor: chief nursing officer. The current system reaches the end of vendor support in December 2026; failures have increased to about two a month, each requiring manual rounding until repaired.
4. Parking garage lighting and resurfacing, $640,000; sponsor: facilities director. Addresses patient and staff complaints and two falls in the past year.
5. Sterile processing washer-disinfector replacement, $410,000; sponsor: surgical services director. One of two units has failed validation twice this year; a failure of the second would cancel surgical cases until instruments could be processed elsewhere.
The Criteria, Published First
Each request is scored from 1 to 5 on four criteria, weighted as agreed by the committee in January, before any request was scored. Explicit, weighted criteria make priority setting transparent and allow others to test the result (Mitton & Donaldson, 2004); scoring several weighted criteria in this way is the basic structure of multiple criteria decision analysis (Thokala et al., 2016).
Patient safety and regulatory risk, weight 35%. Financial return, weight 25%. Strategic fit with the three-year plan, weight 20%. Operational urgency, weight 20%.
Scores and Ranking
Weighted score = 0.35 × safety + 0.25 × finance + 0.20 × strategy + 0.20 × urgency.
| Request | Safety | Finance | Strategy | Urgency | Weighted score | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CT scanner | 3 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 3.90 | 1 |
| Sterile processing washer | 5 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 3.65 | 2 |
| Nurse call system | 5 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 3.60 | 3 |
| Infusion suite | 2 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 3.30 | 4 |
| Parking garage | 3 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2.10 | 5 |
Funding Recommendation
Funding in rank order: CT scanner $1,555,000 (cumulative $1,555,000); sterile processing washer $410,000 (cumulative $1,965,000). The nurse call system at $1,180,000 would bring the total to $3,145,000, $145,000 over the limit. The vendor has confirmed that the system can be installed in two phases, inpatient units first. I recommend funding Phase 1, $1,035,000, this year, bringing the total to exactly $3,000,000, with Phase 2, $145,000, first in line for fiscal year 2028. Phase 1 covers every inpatient bed, where call system failures carry the most risk; Phase 2 covers outpatient areas, where staff are always within sight of patients.
Deferred: the infusion suite, $720,000, and the parking garage, $640,000. The infusion suite scored well financially and strategically, and its sponsor should be invited to present a lease or phased-equipment option that could begin within the operating budget, since much of its cost is renovation. For the parking garage, the facilities director recommends $40,000 of interim lighting from the operating budget to address the most hazardous areas.
How Sensitive Is the Ranking?
Ranks 2 and 3 are separated by only 0.05, and several alternative weightings were tested. If safety and finance were each weighted at 30%, the washer would still rank second (3.50), but the nurse call system and the infusion suite would tie at 3.40. The tie would be broken by urgency, where the nurse call system scores 5 against 3 because vendor support ends in December; the recommendation would not change. The infusion suite would rise above the nurse call system only if strategy were raised to 35% and safety cut to 25%, a change the committee has not proposed and one that would place less weight on patient safety than on the three-year plan. The CT scanner ranks first under every weighting tested. The recommendation therefore does not depend on the fine detail of the weights, but it does depend on the safety weight staying at or near its agreed level.
The scores themselves were assigned by a panel of three executives from finance, nursing, and operations, each scoring independently before the scores were averaged and rounded. Where the three differed by more than one point, as they did on the strategic fit of the parking garage, the panel discussed the difference before settling the score. This reduces the risk that a single sponsor's enthusiasm, or a single evaluator's preference, decides the outcome. The capital process follows the approach in the course finance text (Pink & Song, 2020). The hospital and requests are composite.
References
Mitton, C., & Donaldson, C. (2004). Health care priority setting: Principles, practice and challenges. Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation, 2, Article 3. https://doi.org/10.1186/1478-7547-2-3
Pink, G. H., & Song, P. H. (2020). Gapenski's fundamentals of healthcare finance (3rd ed.). Health Administration Press.
Thokala, P., Devlin, N., Marsh, K., Baltussen, R., Boysen, M., Kalo, Z., Longrenn, T., Mussen, F., Peacock, S., Watkins, J., & Ijzerman, M. (2016). Multiple criteria decision analysis for health care decision making: An introduction: Report 1 of the ISPOR MCDA Emerging Good Practices Task Force. Value in Health, 19(1), 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jval.2015.12.003
What the HA 620 Unit 7 instructions ask for
Unit 7 asks you to write a memo allocating limited resources among competing requests. Expect to state the constraint, describe each request, set out criteria and weights, score and rank the requests, recommend funding, test the ranking and explain what happens to deferred items. Students often ask how to keep the ranking from looking political. Publish the criteria and weights before scoring, and say who agreed them. Score each request on every criterion with a short reason. Fund in rank order until the money runs out, and look for phasing when the next item does not fit. Test other weightings honestly. Give deferred sponsors a path forward rather than a flat no.
How this HA 620 Unit 7 example is built
The memo opens with the $3,000,000 limit and the $1,505,000 gap. The requests section lists five items with cost, sponsor and expected benefit. The criteria section gives the four weights and the January date they were set. A score table shows each request's rating on every criterion and its weighted total. The funding section adds requests in rank order, stops at the nurse call system and funds its $1,035,000 inpatient phase. The deferred section explains why the infusion suite and garage wait and offers each sponsor an alternative, such as a lease. The sensitivity section reruns the scores under equal safety and finance weights. A closing line invites the committee to challenge any single score.
Where the points sit in the HA 620 Unit 7 rubric
Herzing's rubric for a resource allocation memo typically covers the constraint, request descriptions, criteria and weights, scoring, the funding decision, sensitivity and treatment of deferred items. Publishing criteria before scoring is the part graders read most closely, since it shows the ranking was not reverse engineered from a preferred answer. Constraint points reward a clear limit and gap. Scoring criteria look for each rating backed by a reason. The funding decision earns credit when it follows rank order and handles the item that does not fit. Sensitivity points go to alternative weightings and an honest report of which ranks move. Deferred sponsors should receive a path forward. Mitton and Donaldson's priority setting work and Thokala's multicriteria decision analysis guide support the method.
HA 620 Unit 7 help: mistakes that cost points
Allocation memos in HA 620 Unit 7 tend to stumble when the weights appear only after the ranking, which looks like the answer came first. Another frequent problem is scores with no reasons. Students often fund a favorite out of order without saying why. The total exceeds the limit, or money is left unspent with no explanation. Phasing is not considered when the next item is too large. Sensitivity is skipped, though close ranks invite challenge. Deferred requests are dropped without any route forward. Safety items are scored on finance alone. Finally, show the criteria first and the math second, because graders reward a memo that a committee member who disagrees could still accept as fair.
Get a HA 620 Unit 7 example written to your instructions
Send the Unit 7 instructions and the rubric from your HA 620 classroom, plus the pool size and the competing requests your section supplies. We write a custom example with the criteria stated first, the ranking shown, the pool consumed exactly and the refusals explained, returned in 24 to 48 hours. The first custom sample is free.
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HA 620 Unit 7 questions, answered
How many criteria should the memo use?
Few enough to apply consistently. Three or four, each defined so two readers would score a request the same way, produce a defensible ranking. Long criteria lists tend to collapse into a general impression, and unweighted lists let a minor consideration outweigh a major one. If your instructions supply the criteria, use them exactly as written rather than improving on them.
Can I fund a request that scores lower?
Yes, provided you say why in the memo. Regulatory obligations, safety exposure and commitments already made can outrank a higher scoring request, and naming that override is stronger than quietly adjusting the scores to reach the answer you wanted. What loses credit is an override that appears without explanation, since the reader can see the ranking and the outcome disagree.
Does the memo need real dollar figures?
It needs figures that hold together, whether supplied by your classroom or built by you. Requests, the pool and the funded set have to reconcile exactly, and the amounts should be plausible for the setting described. If you construct the numbers, say so in a brief note on method and keep the relative scale realistic, since a request larger than the whole pool signals the model was never checked.
Where can I find a free HA 620 Unit 7 sample paper?
Read the complete HA 620 Unit 7 resource allocation memo here at no charge, $3 million spread across five requests with published weights and a sensitivity test. Ask for a custom memo on another budget.
How do hospitals decide which capital requests to fund?
Many use weighted criteria such as safety, finance, strategy and urgency, agreed before scoring, then fund in rank order until the budget is spent. This sample shows that process with five requests.