Strategic Plan Development
To reach its long-term goals, an organization needs a strategic plan that shows how it will get there. The organization relies on this strategy as a guide to reach its long-term objectives. The independence with which each department manages its purposes is vital to achieving these overarching organizational goals, even if they should align. For the organization to reach its broad strategic objectives, individual departments must establish and meet their strategic goals. More than nine million Veterans receive medical treatment annually through the VA’s most extensive integrated healthcare network (Department of Veterans Affairs, 2022). Accessible nationwide, this vast network covers a variety of healthcare services, such as primary care, mental health, specialized care, women’s health programs, long-term care, emergency and in-patient treatment, and more. Primary Care (PC) plays an essential function within the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) since it is the first point of contact for many Veterans with the healthcare system (U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, n.d). There is a strong connection between PC’s stated goals and the organization’s broader objective, vision, and values. The primary goals of this assessment are to identify the key strategic priorities of the primary care department and examine the effect of organizational policies on these goals.
Departmental Strategic Priorities
Each department may use the organization’s stated strategic direction to pinpoint where to focus its efforts. The VA’s long-term goals and the department’s immediate objectives are perfectly aligned in the recently released Strategic Plan, which covers 2022–2028. A comprehensive assessment of the organizational strategy plan is conducted by VA primary care within this framework. Departmental priorities are defined after careful analysis of the specific needs and problems encountered by the department. These prioritized areas are significant because the success of each department within the VA is crucial to the organization’s overall success and efficiency, ensuring that the nation’s veterans are served effectively, and the VA’s mission is accomplished.
An organizational or departmental performance assessment instrument, a Balanced Scorecard (BSC), is integrated into the strategic planning process (Betto et al., 2022). At its very foundation, the BSC addresses four areas: financial, customers, internal processes, and learning and growth (appendix 1). Providing accurate accountability for all prosthetic equipment is a departmental strategic focus within the financial domain. There is currently a paper-based honor system for personnel to sign out blood pressure cuffs for patients, as the prosthetics department is facing issues with inadequately secured equipment. A lot of blood pressure cuffs have gone missing because of this method, which has cost the clinic revenue. By teaming up with the drugstore to provide the Omni-cell with a blood pressure cuff, we can reduce the likelihood of resource wastage, which is the primary goal of this strategy. Access to and disposal of the blood pressure cuff will be subject to patient identification standards and employee security codes as part of this project. This priority and the strategy plan that goes along with it are fundamental to show that the department is responsible for its resources and cutting losses.
An important departmental goal is to improve the customer experience, which falls under the customer perspective domain. To accomplish this, a yearly clinical reminder has been developed to remind Veterans to change their preferences in the electronic health record (EHR). In this process, individuals can choose their preferred language for communication and express their preferences about gender identity and personal pronouns. Integrating this reminder mechanism into primary care office visits will provide Veterans convenience. The electronic health record system will be instantly updated with the new preferences after the reminder is finished. There is perfect harmony between this project and the related one in the organization’s strategic plan, and both are crucial to the smooth running of the facility. This is being made more accessible by adding new fields to the EHR’s front page that pertain to preferred communication language, gender identification, and pronouns. This change aligns with the goal of improving the customer experience as a whole and further incorporates veterans’ preferences into the healthcare system’s operational framework.
Improving Veterans’ access to digital resources and encouraging more frequent and meaningful online interactions are at the heart of the department’s long-term plan within the domain of its internal business processes. For the team to complete the extensive 8-hour VA Video Connect (VVC) program of study, the clinic will make sure that the primary care provider’s schedule is available for them to do so. The VVC program’s primary objective is to ensure the staff feels comfortable and skilled in using the VA’s virtual platform (Alexander et al., 2021). Staff members can complete numerous video visits during training, and the application teaches them typical troubleshooting approaches. The program’s end goal is for providers to perform at least five VVC visits each month, and to achieve this, the facility adds an extra VVC slot to the provider’s daily schedule. The organization’s strategy to increase the use of virtual care modalities is perfectly aligned with this plan. The clinic’s imperative drives this approach to use virtual visits wherever possible to stay connected with Veterans, increase healthcare accessibility, and remain competitive in the ever-changing healthcare industry.
The department is committed to providing ongoing learning opportunities and fostering professional progress within the learning and growth domain to fulfill the VA’s overall goal. To achieve this goal, the department has collaborated with the VA’s SimLEARN program to build a simulation lab on the premises. This facility will be used for continuous training and education of clinical staff. This simulation lab will adapt and provide new programs and simulations every three months in response to changing demands. The plan’s strategic importance is shown by the fact that it emphasizes the clinic’s investment in personnel’s continual education and training. Employees’ time away from the clinic for training is significantly reduced if these learning activities are held on-site, improving operational efficiency.
Effects of Organizational Policies
Because of its vast scope, the VA faces the formidable challenge of developing strategic goals that must consider every aspect of the institution. Research highlights the importance of organizational planning, which enables individual departments to set priorities that eventually affect higher-ups in the institution (Osintsev & Khalilian, 2023). The VA’s departments and programs must work together for the organization to succeed. The medical center and its affiliated clinics are part of a larger organization that spans the country. Still, they have some flexibility in deciding how to proceed strategically. For instance, several VA departments exceed the monthly goal of five virtual visits per clinician regarding virtual care expertise. Therefore, these departments already functioning above and beyond the required level may not need to focus on strengthening their departmental strategies to increase virtual visits.
As healthcare organizations make the long and winding road to an interdisciplinary service line model, Huebner and Flessa (2022) examines this terrain in detail. According to Huebner and Flessa, (2022), there is a lot of variation among service lines, and it is crucial to note that these different units are not all made to accomplish the same goals. While some hospitals are good at merging some services, healthcare organizations generally need help due to organizational and departmental hurdles. One important point that the researchers stress is that healthcare organizations’ current arrangements may unintentionally cause increased administrative burdens if they do not achieve full integration. This vibrant wrap can build up even if operational efficiency and patient care quality do not improve (Huebner & Flessa, 2022). As a result, healthcare organizations risk adding administrative constraints due to insufficient integration, which may not improve operations’ efficiency or the quality of treatment patients receive.
Given its position as the nation’s biggest integrated healthcare network, the VA has a distinct edge over departmental strategic priorities when understanding organizational policies and strategies. An important part of the VA is the Office of Enterprise Integration (OEI), which is responsible for leading efforts to improve the experience of veterans and employees by integrating people, processes, and technology (U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, n.d.). For the VA to have a thorough grasp of its operations, OEI promotes coordination among departments and leads efforts in areas such as strategic planning, policymaking, and interdisciplinary cooperation. Furthermore, the Office of Primary Care is integral to the VA’s strategy development and policymaking processes. Departments within the VA will be guided by the four strategic goals, thirteen objectives, and seventy-five strategies that comprise the VA’s 2022–28 Strategic Plan. By involving all relevant parties, this method guarantees that current policies align with departmental objectives, encouraging departments to actively accomplish the organization-wide goals set out in the strategic planning process. The overall aim of the VA can be more effectively realized when departmental and organizational goals are in line with one another.
References
Alexander, N. B., Phillips, K., Wagner-Felkey, J., Chan, C., Hogikyan, R., Sciaky, A., & Cigolle, C. (2021). Team VA video connect (VVC) to optimize mobility and physical activity in post-hospital discharge older veterans: Baseline assessment. BMC Geriatrics, 21(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12877-021-02454-w
Betto, F., Sardi, A., Garengo, P., & Sorano, E. (2022). The evolution of balanced scorecard in healthcare: A systematic review of its design, implementation, use, and review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(16), 10291. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph191610291
Department of Veterans Affairs. (2022). Fiscal years 2022-28 strategic plan. http://www.va.gov/oei/docs/va-strategic-plan-2022-2028.pdf
Huebner, C., & Flessa, S. (2022). Strategic management in healthcare: A call for long-term and systems-thinking in an uncertain system. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(14), 8617. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19148617
Osintsev, N., & Khalilian, B. (2023). Does organizational performance increase with innovation and strategic planning? Journal of Operational and Strategic Analytics, 1(1), 25-33. https://doi.org/10.56578/josa010104
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. (n.d.). Office of Enterprise Integration (OEI). https://www.va.gov/oei/about/index.asp
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. (n.d.). Patient care services- Primary care. https://www.patientcare.va.gov/primarycare/index.asp
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