Strategic Plan Development

The efficiency of the flow of operations, as well as the institution’s overall success, depends on the adopted strategic plan. Concerning the provision of Enwere et al. (2014), the plan, in this case, forms the basis for every activity undertaken at the institution. The current plan, for example, creates an autonomous model by conceptualizing the principles behind the balanced scorecard approach. According to Enwere et al. (2014), the general essence of adopting this approach is to align the plan’s formulated activities with the organization’s overall objectives. The plan will therefore communicate what our healthcare organization is trying to accomplish and align the day-to-day activities at the institution with these objectives. Overly, the general idea, in this case, is to prioritize the specific projects within the set time limit to give a sense of direction to every operation at the institution, thus saving time and resources. Additionally, the adopted plan will also measure and monitor the progress made on the set organization objective (AlQershi, 2021). As such, the entire system connects the mission, vision, core values, and the organization’s strategic focus with the daily activities performed at that particular institution.

The balanced scorecard has been embraced by health institutions as a robust strategic planning tool. It aims to balance the organization’s financial measures against its strategic goals. A balanced scorecard as diagramed above gives an organization a chance ‘connect the dots between action centers’ (AlQershi, 2021). The framework allows organization planners to communicate what is to be accomplished; align daily tasks; prioritize projects services, and products; and evaluate progress. The balance scorecard framework found its use in the healthcare industry because of its ability to link financial measures and the organization’s strategic goals. The following framework highlights our healthcare organization’s budget and strategic plan to improve the quality care environment.

Organization Mission and Vision

A strategic plan should align with the organization’s mission and values. The organization’s mission defines its direction of purpose, communicates to all stakeholders where it is headed, and highlights the key issues it is solving in society. A strategic plan should be developed with a concise understanding of the organization’s mission, to ensure the unidirectional movement of resources (AlQershi, 2021). An organization’s vision and values define the inherent values that allow it to coexist in the community and foster positive cooperation among its members. Both mission and vision should be well communicated to the members and supporting culture enhanced.

Meres Healthcare Facility’s goal is to promote an accessible quality healthcare environment to everyone. To achieve this, the organization relies on evidence-based practices and constant research and innovation. It has, therefore, developed a strategic plan with the mission of improving quality care through value-based care, a patient-health-centered approach. The goal not only fits with its mission but also its quality value proposition. A balanced scorecard is effective to evaluate the effectiveness of the strategic plan against the company’s financial health. It helps identify the most appropriate financial input areas with greater care quality outcomes. For example, the company aims to invest in technology as part of its value proposition. The balanced scorecard allows the investors to conceptualize technological tools that will promote quality care guided by evidence-based practice. The framework below summarizes the value position of the strategic plan.

Balanced Scorecard

Each of the Value-Position is aligned with the organization’s mission and vision of accessible quality healthcare in an evidence-based environment. The value positions are highlighted in four critical areas:

Financial Budget Perspective

With the growing emphasis on quality maintenance, it is becoming much more difficult to guarantee the development and growth of this healthcare institution. Every activity at the institution seems to be costly. The overall patient management process presents great financial pressure, especially with the increasing patient population. Concerning the analysis by Schalm (2008), just like most institutions, this is forcing our institution to increase the overall cost of medical care, which has affected the facility and the patient population. In this regard, the proposed plan is the adoption of a value-based reward system. The general structure of this system is to reward the care providers based on the value of the services they deliver. This will enhance the level of proficiency of these care providers, thus improving the overall quality of care while also solving the cost factor.

Customer Perspective

The priority concerning the view of the customer is the adoption of a patient-centered approach to care. According to the provision of Teichgräber et al. (2021), this model will help shift the focus of the operations at the institution to the specific healthcare needs presented by each patient. As such, the approach will help reduce the time and resources spent attending to each patient. Moreover, concerning the analysis of Nippak et al. (2014), this will also improve the overall outcomes of the care process, thus guaranteeing the safety of these patients. Generally, the implementation of this strategic change will improve the performance of the facility in promoting public health safety.

Internal Process.

The key factor in this strategic priority is to enhance the flow of operations at the institution by improving the overall level of proficiency. Based on the recommendation by Meena and Thakkar (2014), this starts with technological advancement in the organization. The key factor, in this case, is to embrace the diversifications in technology and apply these tools to improve the nature and outcomes of service delivery. Moreover, the institution also intends to maintain quality service delivery by applying competency-based practice. Overly, this approach is directed toward ensuring the utmost proficiency of every care provider. Therefore, these nurses are expected to possess all the required nursing competencies as provided by the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties (NONPF).

Learning and Growth

The priority of learning and growth is stretched to include both the care providers as well as the patients. For instance, for the care providers, the general emphasis, in this case, is the adoption of evidence-based practice. As highlighted by Amer et al. (2022), this includes the promotion of continued research among these care providers to enhance the validity and credibility of every activity at the institution. However, from the patient’s perspective, this strategic priority advocates for continued disease management and prevention awareness to help the patient stay safe.

The Strategic Planning Process

After establishing the appropriate framework. A strategic plan was developed by examining three main phases: Highlighting the objectives, formulating the strategy, undertaking a SWOT analysis, examining the legal and ethical environment, and strategy evaluation.

Strategy Mission, Vision, and Objectives

The mission of the organization is to enhance quality accessible care to all patients through a patient-centered intervention approach. The key objectives include advancing evidenced-based care, improving EHR in the facility, and creating an ethically sound treatment environment. The organization’s objective, mission, and vision advocate for a quality patient-centered care environment. The healthcare facility’s core values include leadership, accountability, integrity, professionalism, teamwork, commitment, creativity, and innovation.

Strategic Plan SWOT Analysis

Strategic Formulation

Based on the SWOT analysis, the healthcare strategic plan is formulated from the defined strengths and weaknesses. Financial resource issues are highly evident in the case; therefore, it highly influences the strategic decision made. The staffing issue is also evident and the new technology plan should be evaluated to establish how it would fit the existing human resource needs or the possible training demands (Harrison, 2016). The future of healthcare has been highlighted both under threat and in opportunities, it is vital in making a strategic decision about evidenced-based care and automation in the facility. Finally, the strategic plan is expected to perform effectively within the organization and at the same time outside forces, such as government demands for information management (Harrison, 2016). Hence, the strategy is based on the desired outcomes after strategic evaluation of both the internal and external forces affecting the healthcare organization.

Strategic Policy Implementation

The implementation stage includes communicating the change to all the stakeholders, change management, and steering the new change to the desired goals. In this case, it is designed to help smoothly facilitate the strategic plan’s objectives. Policy implementation should involve all the stakeholders and an effective change model to minimize undesired consequences. Kurt Lewin’s change mode of unfreeze, change, and refreeze is effective during this implementation (Harrison, 2016).

Monitoring and Evaluation

Based on the presented information, it is evident that each of the highlighted priorities is in response to the set organizational objective of continued quality maintenance at the lowest costs possible. Moreover, these goals are also very attainable with the available organizational resources and do not require a lot of time to implement. In addition, the institution’s policy on value creation also favors these organizational strategic priorities. For instance, these policies fight for the protection of the patient’s interests at all times (Harrison, 2016). This includes the delivery of quality services as well as eliminating the cost factor that may prevent these patients from accessing the services of the institution. Monitoring and evaluation will be rolled out to establish how the planned change is taking shape. The SMART objectives will be used as indicators during plan implementation.

Legal and Ethical Considerations

The legal environment affecting care provision is critical in this strategic plan. Among the laws that should be given consideration include information management laws, privacy laws, financial management laws, patient protection laws, human resource management and labor laws, and sustainable management laws (Harrison, 2016). These laws directly affect the organization and should be given priority before developing a new strategic plan. Most healthcare institutions are struggling with HIS laws, because of porous healthcare information systems. Cybersecurity laws are also becoming important among users of technology (Harrison, 2016). The legal concerns should be fully addressed before the implementation of the plan.

Ethical concerns are critical in a healthcare setting. The ethical concerns that should be addressed include staff autonomy during the change process, non-discriminatory practices that can result from implementing the technology, patient management ethics, evidenced-based data management ethics, financial reporting ethics, and work environment ethics (Horn et al., 2021). The entire ethical environment forms part of the organization’s vision and values. When effectively managed, the change process will be smooth and productive. Other ethics that should be observed in this strategic plan are those involving transparency, accountability, and integrity at every stage of implementation (Harrison, 2016).

In conclusion, the strategic plan for Meres Healthcare Facility is guided by the balanced scorecard framework. The scorecard allows the strategic committees to conceptualize both the financial and strategic goals of the plan. The strategic plan is further guided by the organization’s Mission and vision, and SWOT result. Based on the analysis the plan has been formulated to address staff, financial, and industrial demands for the new strategy. Finally, the organization’s legal and ethical environment has been established as critical in the strategic plan. Several legal and ethical concerns have been highlighted as critical in the strategy implementation.

References

AlQershi, N. (2021). Strategic thinking, strategic planning, strategic innovation and the performance of SMEs: The mediating role of human capital. Management Science Letters, 11(3), 1003-1012.

Amer, F., Hammoud, S., Khatatbeh, H., Lohner, S., Boncz, I., & Endrei, D. (2022). The deployment of a balanced scorecard in health care organizations: Is it beneficial? A systematic review. BMC Health Services Research, 22(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-021-07452-7

Enwere, E. N., Keating, E. A., & Weber, R. J. (2014). Balanced scorecards as a tool for developing patient-centered pharmacy services. Hospital Pharmacy, 49(6), 579-584. https://doi.org/10.1310/hpj4906-579

Harrison, J. P., & Association of University Programs in Health Administration. (2016). Essentials of strategic planning in healthcare (Vol. 1). Chicago: Health Administration Press.

Meena, K., & Thakkar, J. (2014). Development of a balanced scorecard for healthcare using interpretive structural modeling and analytic network process. Journal of Advances in Management Research, 11(3), 232-256. https://doi.org/10.1108/jamr-12-2012-0051

Nippak, P., Veracion, J. I., Muia, M., Ikeda-Douglas, C. J., & Isaac, W. W. (2014). Designing and evaluating a balanced scorecard for a health information management department in a Canadian urban non-teaching hospital. Health Informatics Journal, 22(2), 120-139. https://doi.org/10.1177/1460458214537005

Schalm, C. (2008). Implementing a balanced scorecard as a strategic management tool in a long-term care organization. Journal of Health Services Research & Policy, 13(1_suppl), 8-14. https://doi.org/10.1258/jhsrp.2007.007013

Teichgräber, U., Sibbel, R., Heinrich, A., & Güttler, F. (2021). Development of a balanced scorecard as a strategic performance measurement system for clinical radiology as a cost center. Insights into Imaging, 12(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13244-021-01009-2-