Strategic Planning in Healthcare organizations | 2022

Strategic Planning
Strategic planning is an organization's process of defining its strategy, or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy. In order to determine the direction of the organization, it is necessary to understand its current position and the possible avenues through which it can pursue a particular course of action. Describe the components of strategic planning. Explore how the healthcare manager uses the strategic planning process. Use examples to support your position.

The Importance of Strategic Planning

As noted in a report published in the Journal of Oncology Practice, “You may not be able to control the future, but strategic planning can create a direction for your practice and maximize your options for influencing your environment.” Strategic planning in health care organizations entails taking proactive steps toward a goal, not just addressing immediate problems as they arise. Health care strategy is crucial to an organization’s future success by providing the framework for making day-to-day choices in alignment with its objectives.

Levels of Health Care Strategy

The American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) explains that health care strategies vary in type (prospective or emergent) and organizational level (corporate, business, or functional).

Strategy Types

No matter their size or mission, most organizations employ some form of strategy to make progress towards their long-term goals. There are two main strategy types that organizations employ: prospective and emergent.

Prospective Strategy

The majority of large health care organizations develop thorough plans to prepare for future issues that may affect their facilities and the health care field at large. These providers must focus on creating strategies that anticipate potential needs for additional resources, such as capital and personnel. This type of long-term planning is known as prospective strategy. Prospective strategies should also allow for flexibility in case unforeseen developments occur in the health care sector. For example, if providers develop a prospective strategy based on an expected nursing shortage in the years ahead, and that shortage is less severe than anticipated, a flexible strategy would include a plan for reallocating resources to other areas.

Emergent Strategy

Emergent strategies involve a retrospective analysis of events to make better decisions going forward. Developments such as the implementation of new health care policy, swings in prescription drug prices, and outbreaks of epidemic diseases can cause health care market fluctuations that require providers to continually experiment and adapt. Organizations that rely on emergent strategies must be extremely flexible to be able to re-evaluate internal strategies and quickly recalibrate to better suit current market trends. Many providers analyze competitors’ strategies and implement tactics that seem to be working for other leaders in the field.