CONCLUSIONS are statements of closure about issues relevant to the Field Study.  They are developed entirely from FINDINGS and are supported at all levels by the FACTS.  They are the “Q’s” in the logical expression “P implies Q” and in order to be true, the “P’s” have to be true.  Therefore, the entire process of developing conclusion is based on the fact that the FINDINGS have been developed carefully from the facts.

CONCLUSIONS are drawn in team meetings led by the team captain and should be devoted ONLY to the development of the conclusions.  The CONCLUSIONS form the basis for the RECOMMENDATIONS to follow.

There is a strong similarity in drawing conclusions to developing findings.  As with the findings, a “flip chart” is used along with a copy of the confirmation letter written to the client articulating the issues to be addressed.

The Wheaton Medical Clinic team focused on each issue articulated in the confirmation letter separately on different pages of the flip chart.  The issues for the Wheaton Medical Clinic were as follows:

What do patients of the Wheaton Medical Clinic think about the current quality of medical care provided by the clinic?

What do patients of the Wheaton Medical Clinic think about the range of facilities and practices offered by the clinic?

What do patients think about ideas of enhancement of services at the clinic – specifically those services relating to the logistics of a visit to the clinic (waiting room, scheduling, phone service, and the like?)

What are some of the creative ideas that patients of the clinic have to improve the quality of services offered by the clinic to the community it serves?

Conclusions are crisp and to the point.

The following example of a conclusion from the Wheaton Medical Clinic case study demonstrates ‘closure’ to the issue of “What do patients of the Wheaton Medical Clinic think about the current quality of service provided by the clinic?”  This conclusion is supported entirely by the findings and is shown in the image below.

Sample of Conclusion

In pages showing conclusions, the dot points can be findings that support that conclusion.

As with the findings, the conclusions that are drawn and for which the sentences and supporting dot points written form the conclusion chapter of the final report; and as with the findings chapter, a summary of the conclusions is written on one page.

When the team felt that their conclusions had been reached successfully and were supported by the findings and facts, they proceeded to writing their recommendations based on their conclusions.