Strategic Planning In Healthcare Organizations Research Paper

Strategic Planning In Healthcare Organizations Research Paper

1. How has the role of strategic planner changed over the past several decades? What new skills will be essential for the strategic planner?
2. How does the scanning process (in strategic planning) create a “window” to the external environment? How does the window concept help in understanding organizations and the types of information they produce?
3. Using Exhibit 2-10, as your basis to discuss strategic assumptions and how you would respond to them in a strategic planning assessment. Strategic Planning In Healthcare Organizations Research Paper

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Introduction

Strategic planning in healthcare organizations is an essential part of the management requirement because it helps in developing goals and objectives that help the organization to have a vision and a mission to work towards. It is therefore important for any business entity like a healthcare organization to ensure that a great team of strategic planners is involved in the planning of the organization’s activities (Ginter, Duncan, & Swayne, 2018)Strategic Planning In Healthcare Organizations Research Paper. Additionally, strategic planning helps in ensuring that all the organization’s finances are well managed and accounted for as other activities like procurement processes to allow the supply of the necessary equipment used in performing healthcare procedures are readily available thus leading to improved patient outcomes. Ginter, Duncan, & Swayne, (2018) continue to discuss that Strategic planning in healthcare involves the understanding of patients’ needs and preferences thus allowing the delivery of high-quality healthcare services resulting in the desired patient outcomes.

Also, Shujahat et al. (2017) highlight that strategic planning involves organizational leadership where strategic planners concentrate greater emphasis on resources and their allocation to the various departments. Therefore, this paper seeks to discuss how the role of a strategic planner has changed over the past several decades and the new skills that a strategic planner should have. Additionally, the paper will continue to highlight the scanning process in strategic planning to create a window to the external environment and how the window concept helps in understanding organizations and the type of information they produce. Finally, the paper will conclude by using exhibit 2-10 as a basis of discussion to explain strategic assumptions and how to respond to them in a strategic planning assessment.

1a. How has the role of a strategic planner changed over the past several decades?

Bryson, (2018) explains that strategic planning refers to the procedures used by the organization to define their plans for making various choices on resource allocation to attain given goals. Thus, strategic planners are people or persons tasked with the development and implementation of corporate strategies. The strategic planners make plans and execute them since they are responsible for the strategic management processes of the organization. However, the roles of strategic planners have significantly evolved in the past decades with the introduction of dynamic contemporary approaches to replace conventional approaches due to their comprehensive studies (Bryson, 2018)Strategic Planning In Healthcare Organizations Research Paper. Nowadays, the role of strategic planners has moved away from traditional approaches to embrace modern research and technology. The process of strategic planning currently goes through several parameters prior to the execution stage where implementation occurs. The changes have called for the utilization of modern technology to remain updated and relevant to new changes in the rapidly evolving market. Also, the progressive improvement in strategic planning has been supported by advanced education and the employment of experienced personnel.

1b. What new skills will be essential for the strategic planner?

The most important attribute of a strategic planner is advanced education, especially a master’s degree in a management discipline or related subject. The individual should be passionate or enthusiastic in undertaking roles since leadership can be time-consuming hence their entire commitment to work is essential. Bowen & Bowen, (2017) report that flexibility is another skill that a strategic planner needs to be adaptable enough to accommodate the unprecedented changes in the organization through the use of critical thinking. Another useful skill for the strategic planner is the use of appropriate communication with strong presentation skills and spoken language abilities since he or she is constantly engaging with workers and other managers in the continuous operations of the organization. The appropriate expression of views in the company is essential for the company’s success (Bowen & Bowen, 2017)Strategic Planning In Healthcare Organizations Research Paper. The use of effective research on diverse business operations and robust decision-making skills is also useful in promoting and being up to date on trends especially the changes in technology that need persistent improvement of one’s knowledge on the use of new gadgets.

 

2a. How does the scanning process (in strategic planning) create a “window” to the external environment?

The scanning process involves the identification and documentation of various external organizations and activities in the healthcare system and in the general service area environment because it helps in understanding pertinent, current, and emerging trends (Ginter, Duncan, & Swayne, 2018). Therefore, the scanning process helps greatly in creating a window to the external environment thus allowing the strategic planners to understand the current trends thus developing ways to create a competitive edge by planning the organization’s future course of action. Additionally, this is a way of scrutinizing the external environment of an organization thus understanding the current and emerging informational patterns. Shujahat et al. (2017) discuss that the scanning process is meant to accumulate, organize, and evaluate infrequent and unorganized data thus acting as an opening or a window to the external part of the organization. Also, the scanning process is important because it helps an organization to stay focused and ensure that all the technological trends, social and regulatory issues are well analyzed and managed to achieve a competitive advantage (Ginter, Duncan, & Swayne, 2018)Strategic Planning In Healthcare Organizations Research Paper. The scanning process, therefore, is essential for any business entity since an elimination of unnecessary data and information that is not important to keep the business management focused in achieving its goals and objectives. For instance, the scanning process is essential in public health because it is used by federal funding agencies and other non-profit healthcare organizations to assess the collected data. The appropriate stakeholders are involved in by answering questions thus giving a clear overview of the external environment and assessment of other multiple facets (Shujahat et al. 2017). Therefore, improved performance in healthcare organizations is realized through the use of evidence-based responses and when the scanning process is implemented.

2b. How does the window concept help in understanding organizations and the types of information they produce?

The window concept is important for organizations because then the strategic planners can focus on organizations that produce the required information rather than wasting time on all other entities that provide unnecessary information (Shujahat et al. 2017). For instance, healthcare facilities will deliver the appropriate high-quality services to the right patient population using the data collected using the window concept. Additionally, the underserved population can have access to the right healthcare services because information accumulated, organized, and evaluated from this region is helpful in giving direction on the type of care services needed in a certain environment.

3. Using Exhibit 2-10, as your basis to discuss strategic assumptions and how you would respond to them in a strategic planning assessment.

Healthcare facilities and other business entities have basic activities and beliefs that they embrace because it helps in exploring and determining the external risks and opportunities. Such a culture is known as a strategic assumption. Also, business entities use assumptions in making strategic plans about the future in diverse situations and it may or may not be successful (Esfahani, Mosadeghrad, & Akbarisari, 2018)Strategic Planning In Healthcare Organizations Research Paper. For instance, the management of a healthcare facility may decide to expand and acquire another facility so that they can pull resources together and generate synergies to reduce expenses and deliver a wide variety of healthcare services. However, this may not be successful because most strategic plans involve assumptions that may not result in the desired outcomes. therefore, it is important that healthcare facilities and other companies understand that assumptions are a foundation for approaches, and a thorough investigation is needed to determine the possible severity of consequences.

On the other hand, Esfahani, Mosadeghrad, & Akbarisari, (2018) delineate that that sometimes, assumptions that can be used in strategic planning may not have supportive evidence in some instances because informative data may not always be accessible to help in justifying the assumptions used. The lack of evidence due to unavailable data does not mean that all assumptions are inaccurate, rather, it means that strategic planners must make difficult assumptions because it results in implicit beliefs in a company (Ginter, Duncan, & Swayne, 2018)Strategic Planning In Healthcare Organizations Research Paper. Therefore, strategic planners with management and leadership skills are important for an organization because they are able to avoid risks arising from assumptions by distributing them to third parties and lowering the negative impacts that can be encountered. another way that can be used to cope with the consequences of the assumptions used in strategic planning is to accept whatever the outcomes and be ready to manage or deal with all the implications of the risks.

Conclusion

In summary, strategic planning is an essential part of management in all business entities including healthcare organizations because it is then when resources are deliberated into various departments. The goals and objectives of the organization can be achieved when strategic planning is applied through the use of the window concept as well as the appropriate assumptions that result in the desired outcomes. additionally, strategic planning involves effective communication and presentation of ideas using accurate data and the risks can be minimized. Strategic planners on the other hand should possess some important skills like communication skills, the ability to interact and cooperate with other employees, and the education that gives them the ability to understand and innovatively develop improved methods of improving the service quality Strategic Planning In Healthcare Organizations Research Paper.

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 References

Bowen, G., & Bowen, D. (2017). Strategist: Role and attributes. In Encyclopedia of Strategic Leadership and Management (pp. 1745-1757). IGI Global. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-1049-9.ch121

Bryson, J. M. (2018). Strategic planning for public and nonprofit organizations: A guide to strengthening and sustaining organizational achievement. John Wiley & Sons.

Esfahani, P., Mosadeghrad, A. M., & Akbarisari, A. (2018). The success of strategic planning in health care organizations of Iran. International journal of health care quality assurance. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJHCQA-08-2017-0145

Ginter, P. M., Duncan, W. J., & Swayne, L. E. (2018). The strategic management of health care organizations. John Wiley & Sons.

Shujahat, M., Hussain, S., Javed, S., Malik, M. I., Thurasamy, R., & Ali, J. (2017). Strategic management model with lens of knowledge management and competitive intelligence: A review approach. VINE Journal of Information and Knowledge Management Systems. https://doi.org/10.1108/VJIKMS-06-2016-0035 Strategic Planning In Healthcare Organizations Research Paper