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Strategic Planning in Healthcare Environment

Strategic planning is a sound and vital tool in monitoring different types of organizations. In healthcare, the level at which strategic planning is exercised depends on the size and the service provided by the organization. A coronary care unit, an intensive care unit, or a gynecology unit are examples of these levels, although their programs parallelize the programs at senior levels in the organization. The healthcare environment always changes due to factors such as government directives. Therefore, it is important to have a strategic plan for success in a healthcare organization.

Purpose of Strategic Planning

Healthcare organizations’ success is highly dependent on the clarity of the strategic planning program. Strategic planning can be done by setting objectives and goals an organization wants to achieve in the future. One of the purposes of strategic planning is to improve communication among all the levels in the organization. Departments, employees, and other stakeholders want security in the organization’s future. This can only be achieved through management initiatives to improve communication flow and clarity while addressing the intended meaning of the organization’s goals, objectives, and visions.

The second purpose of strategic planning is to increase employee involvement and stimulation. All the employees in an organization, ranging from nurses to doctors, and other specialists want to be acknowledged to boost their productivity and involvement. An organization without strategic plans demotivates employees from improving themselves due to a lack of vision and goals.

Lastly, strategic planning in an organization increases teamwork and partnership. Teamwork and partnership are vital elements in providing excellent service delivery in a healthcare organization. Powerful strategic planning patterns can promote teamwork in a healthcare organization, hence promoting excellent care delivery, good customer relations, and improved performance.

Factors affecting Strategic Planning

Strategic planning is affected by various factors, one of them being commitment by management. The management body has a very important responsibility in ensuring the implementation of strategic plans and programs of the organization. Good healthcare management fosters the smooth implementation of the strategic plans by ensuring requisite resources are available on need.

Employee commitment is another factor that impacts strategic planning. Employees are the individuals responsible for the implementation of approved strategic plans. Therefore, their involvement and stimulation ensure the healthcare strategies are adopted with ease and positivity.

Resource availability and distribution is another factor that affects strategic planning and implementation of approved programs. Financial resources and human resources promote the implementation of strategic planning programs. When the resources are available in an organization, achieving the visions and goals of the organization becomes easy. 

Tools Used in Strategic Planning

There are special tools used in strategic planning to smoothen organizational operation. These include the vision, Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis, the affinity diagram, and metrics. The company vision acts as the roadmap that is needed to steer the company to success because it defines its goals and purpose. The statement which is obtained through participative brainstorming and expert opinion is the guide upon which strategic plans are drawn. The SWOT analysis, on the other hand, provides significant information that can be made use of for strategic planning initiatives the organization needs to pursue. It involves the evaluation of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats an organization is likely to incur.

The affinity diagram is used to group projects in healthcare according to features and levels. A clear affinity diagram is excellent for prioritizing projects to be handled. Lastly, metrics are a summary of measures taken to examine the impact of projects and whether it meets the intended objectives. Metrics are important for an organization since they enable the organization to monitor service delivery.

In conclusion, strategic planning is an important component in the success of a healthcare organization. Improving communication at all levels in an organization, increasing employee involvement, and improving teamwork are very important for success in the organization as they improve service delivery. An organization can achieve success through a commitment from management and employees and making the required resources available. An organization should spend a lot of time analyzing the tools to be used for strategic planning and to work on the strategic plans before availing the plans to the employees and other stakeholders in the organization.