Hospice Quality Assurance SWOT Analysis Assignment Guide
The SWOT is scoped to the quality assurance programme, not the hospice — and the recommendation is worth almost as much as either half of the analysis.
Editorial process
Last reviewed · August 9, 2026
Scope it to the programme, not the organisation
The SWOT here is not a general strategic analysis of a hospice — it is scoped to the quality assurance *programme*, and that scoping decides whether the paper answers the question. Strengths and weaknesses are therefore about how the organisation measures, monitors and improves care quality: whether it collects outcome data, whether that data reaches the people who could act on it, whether adverse events are reviewed, whether staff competency is assessed, whether the programme survives staff turnover. A paper that lists a strong reputation and a committed workforce has written a SWOT for the hospice rather than for its quality programme. Test every item you write by asking whether it would appear in a quality assurance audit; if it would not, it belongs somewhere other than this analysis. The brief also says you will present the analysis to senior management, which is a second scoping cue: the audience already knows the hospice, so what they need from you is a judgement about the programme they fund.
The internal-external split is what the whole structure rests on and it is worth being strict about. Strengths and weaknesses are internal: things the hospice controls or could change on its own. Opportunities and threats are external: things arising in the industry environment that the hospice can respond to but not control. The brief makes this explicit by asking you to assess a hospice's *internal* quality strengths and weaknesses, and then to analyse *the hospice industry* for opportunities and threats. Putting understaffing under threats, or a new reimbursement rule under weaknesses, breaks that logic and is the most common error in a SWOT. The same fact can appear on both sides in different forms — an ageing population is an external opportunity, while your capacity to serve it is an internal strength or weakness — and saying so explicitly demonstrates that you understand the distinction rather than merely following it.
Five external categories are named and each one must appear, because the grading criteria reward analysing the industry rather than listing a few threats. Consumer and social covers demographic ageing, changing expectations about dying at home, hospice literacy and referral timing. Competitive covers the mix of non-profit and for-profit providers, market entry, and referral relationships with hospitals and nursing facilities. Technological covers electronic documentation, remote symptom monitoring and data systems that make quality measurement possible at all. Economic covers reimbursement structure, length-of-stay economics and labour market costs. Legal and regulatory covers conditions of participation, survey requirements and reporting obligations. Work through them as a checklist rather than as prose, because five categories inside a three-page paper will not survive being written from memory. Name the category explicitly as a heading or a labelled entry rather than trusting the marker to infer it, since thirty of the hundred points depend on the industry analysis being visibly complete.
Each of those five is genuinely two-sided, and treating them as a threat list halves the analysis. Technology is the clearest example: an electronic record is an opportunity because it makes systematic quality measurement possible, and a threat because implementation cost and documentation burden fall on clinical staff. Regulation works the same way — mandatory quality reporting is a compliance burden and simultaneously an external driver that funds and legitimises the programme internally. Show at least two of the five cutting both ways. That is also what makes the recommendation defensible later, since a recommendation that responds to a threat while capturing the opportunity attached to it is stronger than one that only defends. Economic factors cut both ways just as sharply, because a per-diem reimbursement structure rewards longer enrolment while penalising the intensive early days that quality of care often requires.
The recommendation is a separate graded criterion and it must follow *from the results of the SWOT*, not sit beside them. That means it should name which strength it leverages, which weakness it addresses, and which external factor makes it timely — a recommendation traceable back to specific cells of your own analysis. It is addressed to senior management, so pitch it accordingly: one clear proposal rather than five, with an indication of what it would cost, who would own it, and how success would be measured. Quality assurance recommendations that end at "improve staff training" fail on all three of those. Say what happens if nothing changes as well, because senior management reads a recommendation against the alternative of leaving things as they are. Keep it to one page at most, since a recommendation that runs longer than the analysis it rests on signals that the SWOT was written to justify a conclusion already reached.
The mechanics are stated and the grading criteria are published in the brief itself, which is unusual and worth using. Two to three pages, with thirty points for internal strengths and weaknesses, thirty for the industry opportunities and threats, twenty-five for the recommendation, and fifteen for grammar, word choice and correct APA citation. That distribution tells you the recommendation is worth almost as much as either half of the SWOT, so it cannot be a closing paragraph. Fifteen points for mechanics and sourcing is also too many to lose on an uncited claim. A four-quadrant table for the SWOT itself, with the discussion in prose underneath, keeps a three-page paper inside its limit while still showing the analysis behind each entry. Cite the industry claims as you write each quadrant rather than afterwards, because a SWOT assembled first and sourced later tends to end up with entries no source actually supports.
Element | The version that loses marks | The version that scores |
|---|---|---|
Scope | A SWOT for the hospice | A SWOT for its quality assurance programme |
Strengths | Reputation and dedicated staff | Data collection, review processes, competency assessment |
Weaknesses | Understaffing | Where quality measurement or follow-through breaks down |
Internal vs external | Regulation listed as a weakness | Regulation external, capacity to comply internal |
The five categories | Three of five covered | All five, each addressed explicitly |
Two-sidedness | A list of threats | At least two categories shown cutting both ways |
Recommendation | 'Improve staff training' | One proposal, traceable to named SWOT cells |
Recommendation detail | What, only | What, who owns it, cost, and how success is measured |
Citations | Assertions about the industry | Sourced claims, correctly formatted |
Likely learning objectives
Inferred from the brief — check these against your own rubric.
- 01Scope a SWOT to a programme rather than to an organisation.
- 02Keep internal and external factors on the correct side of the analysis.
- 03Show external factors as two-sided rather than as threats alone.
- 04Derive a single recommendation traceable to named cells of the analysis.
Read the full question
Review every instruction before using the planning guidance that follows.
Course-wide instructions that accompany this question
Important information for writing discussion questions and participation Hi Class, Please read through the following information on writing a Discussion question response and participation posts. Contact me if you have any questions. Important information on Writing a Discussion Question Your response needs to be a minimum of 150 words (not including your list of references) There needs to be at least TWO references with ONE being a peer reviewed professional journal article. Include in-text citations in your response Do not include quotes—instead summarize and paraphrase the information Follow APA-7th edition Points will be deducted if the above is not followed Participation –replies to your classmates or instructor A minimum of 6 responses per week, on at least 3 days of the week. Each response needs at least ONE reference with citations—best if it is a peer reviewed journal article Each response needs to be at least 75 words in length (does not include your list of references) Responses need to be substantive by bringing information to the discussion or further enhance the discussion. Responses of “I agree” or “great post” does not count for the word count. Follow APA 7th edition Points will be deducted if the above is not followed Remember to use and follow APA-7th edition for all weekly assignments, discussion questions, and participation points. Here are some helpful links Student paper example Citing Sources The Writing Center is a great resource Welcome to class Hello class and welcome to the class and I will be your instructor for this course. This is a -week course and requires a lot of time commitment, organization, and a high level of dedication. Please use the class syllabus to guide you through all the assignments required for the course. I have also attached the classroom policies to this announcement to know your expectations for this course. Please review this document carefully and ask me any questions if you do. You could email me at any time or send me a message via the “message” icon in halo if you need to contact me. I check my email regularly, so you should get a response within 24 hours. If you have not heard from me within 24 hours and need to contact me urgently, please send a follow up text to. I strongly encourage that you do not wait until the very last minute to complete your assignments. Your assignments in weeks 4 and 5 require early planning as you would need to present a teaching plan and interview a community health provider. I advise you look at the requirements for these assignments at the beginning of the course and plan accordingly. I have posted the YouTube link that explains all the class assignments in detail. It is required that you watch this 32-minute video as the assignments from week 3 through 5 require that you follow the instructions to the letter to succeed. Failure to complete these assignments according to instructions might lead to a zero. After watching the video, please schedule a one-on-one with me to discuss your topic for your project by the second week of class. Use this link to schedule a 15-minute session. Please, call me at the time of your appointment on my number. Please note that I will NOT call you. Please, be advised I do NOT accept any assignments by email. If you are having technical issues with uploading an assignment, contact the technical department and inform me of the issue. If you have any issues that would prevent you from getting your assignments to me by the deadline, please inform me to request a possible extension. Note that working fulltime or overtime is no excuse for late assignments. There is a 5%-point deduction for every day your assignment is late. This only applies to approved extensions. Late assignments will not be accepted. If you think you would be needing accommodations due to any reasons, please contact the appropriate department to request accommodations. Plagiarism is highly prohibited. Please ensure you are citing your sources correctly using APA 7th edition. All assignments including discussion posts should be formatted in APA with the appropriate spacing, font, margin, and indents. Any papers not well formatted would be returned back to you, hence, I advise you review APA formatting style. I have attached a sample paper in APA format and will also post sample discussion responses in subsequent announcements. Your initial discussion post should be a minimum of 200 words and response posts should be a minimum of 150 words. Be advised that I grade based on quality and not necessarily the number of words you post. A minimum of TWO references should be used for your initial post. For your response post, you do not need references as personal experiences would count as response posts. If you however cite anything from the literature for your response post, it is required that you cite your reference. You should include a minimum of THREE references for papers in this course. Please note that references should be no more than 5 years old except recommended as a resource for the class. Furthermore, for each discussion board question, you need ONE initial substantive response and TWO substantive responses to either your classmates or your instructor for a total of THREE responses. There are TWO discussion questions each week, hence, you need a total minimum of SIX discussion posts for each week. I usually post a discussion question each week. You could also respond to these as it would count towards your required SIX discussion posts for the week. I understand this is a lot of information to cover in 5 weeks, however, the Bible says in Philippians 4:13 that we can do all things through Christ that strengthens us. Even in times like this, we are encouraged by God’s word that we have that ability in us to succeed with His strength. I pray that each and every one of you receives strength for this course and life generally as we navigate through this pandemic that is shaking our world today. Relax and enjoy the course!
What the analysis must contain
- 01A two- to three-page SWOT analysis in APA style.
- 02Internal quality strengths and weaknesses of the hospice.
- 03Industry opportunities and threats.
- 04Explicit coverage of consumer and social, competitive, technological, economic, and legal and regulatory factors.
- 05A recommendation to senior management based on the analysis.
From internal processes to the recommendation
Scope and method
State that the analysis covers the quality assurance programme.
Internal strengths and weaknesses
Assess measurement, review, follow-through and competency.
External factors, category by category
Work through consumer and social, competitive, technological, economic, and legal.
Recommendation to senior management
Propose one action traceable to the analysis.
Evidence for both halves of each category
Recommended databases
- PubMed Central
- Journal of Pain and Symptom Management
- Joint Commission publications
- Hospice quality reporting programme documentation
Search sequence
- 1.Find published accounts of hospice quality measurement, since the internal half of the SWOT needs to be about real quality processes rather than about the organisation generally.
- 2.Look for work on electronic documentation in hospice, which supplies the technological category with a genuinely two-sided example.
- 3.Search for the regulatory and reporting requirements that apply, because the legal category is the one most often asserted without a source.
- 4.Find at least one paper on what hospice quality programmes struggle with, which is where the weaknesses half gets its evidence rather than its guesswork.
Hospice quality measurement and documentation
These are authoritative starting points, not a ready-made bibliography. A qualified reviewer must confirm that each source fits the assignment and supports the claim beside which it is cited.
Nothing here is cleared for citation until you have read it.
- 01
Experiences of participants in a collaborative to develop performance measures for hospice care
Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety · 2011
Documents what it actually takes to build hospice performance measurement, which is the evidence the internal strengths and weaknesses section needs.
- 02
Use of electronic documentation for quality improvement in hospice
American Journal of Medical Quality · 2012
Gives the technological category a two-sided example — documentation systems as both the enabler of quality measurement and a burden on clinical staff.
- 03
Quality measures for hospice and palliative care: piloting the PEACE measures
Journal of Palliative Medicine · 2014
Supplies named, tested quality measures, so the analysis can discuss what a programme measures rather than whether it measures anything.
- 04
Use of Auditing and Feedback in an Outpatient Hospice Setting: Quality and Pharmacoeconomic Oversight
Journal of Pain and Symptom Management · 2019
A worked audit-and-feedback intervention with an economic dimension, useful as a model for a recommendation that names ownership and how success would be measured.
Before the analysis goes to senior management
Common mistakes
- Writing a SWOT for the hospice rather than for its quality assurance programme.
- Listing reputation and dedicated staff as quality strengths.
- Placing regulation or reimbursement under weaknesses.
- Placing staffing shortages under threats.
- Covering only three or four of the five named external categories.
- Treating every external factor as a threat.
- Writing a recommendation that does not reference the analysis.
- Proposing five recommendations instead of one.
- Omitting ownership, cost and success measures from the recommendation.
- Making industry claims without citations, when mechanics and sourcing carry fifteen points.
- Running past three pages because the SWOT was written as prose rather than a table.
Submission checklist
- Every SWOT entry relates to quality assurance specifically.
- Strengths and weaknesses are things the hospice controls.
- Opportunities and threats arise outside the organisation.
- All five external categories appear by name.
- At least two categories are shown cutting both ways.
- The recommendation names the strength, weakness and external factor it responds to.
- The recommendation states ownership, cost and how success would be judged.
- The consequence of doing nothing is addressed.
- All industry claims are cited in APA style.
- The paper is two to three pages.
Use this guide to plan and review your own work. Follow your institution's rules and read our academic-integrity policy.
Written by
Aaron Bishop
MA, Education
assignment interpretation and research-methods coaching across disciplines
Aaron leads the EssayCrackers editorial desk. He works on how assignment briefs are read — what a rubric is actually asking for, and where students most often answer a different question than the one set.
Reviewed by
Dr. Nathan Cole
PhD, Rhetoric & Composition
Argumentation and thesis development
Nathan teaches first-year composition and directs a university writing center. He reviews EssayCrackers guides for argumentative soundness and citation accuracy.