Org Introduction, Mission, Vision

The organization that I work for is the Grady Health System in Atlanta, Georgia. The Grady systems comprises 8 health care facilities in the Atlanta area. The Grady Health System has been part of the Atlanta community since 1892, with 110 beds and one operating room at Grady Hospital in a three-story facility. The organization was founded by Henry Grady, the editor of the Atlanta Constitution, as a means of providing health care for the area's poor (GradyHealth.org, 2014).

Grady's vision is to become the "leading public academic healthcare system in the United States." The organization's mission as follows:

"Grady improves the health of the community by providing quality, comprehensive healthcare in a compassionate, culturally competent, ethical and fiscally responsible manner. Grady maintains its commitment to the underserved of Fulton and DeKalb counties, while also providing care for residents of metro Atlanta and Georgia. Grady leads through its clinical excellence, innovative research and progressive medical education and training."

Grady's values are stated as excellence, customer service, ethics, teamwork and commitment. These values, mission and vision reflect the origins as a provider of healthcare for the poor, and the focus on excellence that has come to characterize Grady in the past several decades.

Strategic Planning Model

A strategic planning model is the means by which an organization develops its strategic plan. There are many different approaches to strategic planning. One model is to build from the vision or strategic goals; another is to plan around key issues. There is also the alignment model, seeking to align resources with the mission and vision; there is the scenario planning model and then there is also the organic planning model that reflects ongoing strategic planning (McNamara, 2014).

The Grady Health System builds its strategic plan around its vision, but aligning its resources and strategies around that vision. They begin with a clear sense of long-range objective in their vision statement and then work from there. Their mandate has been adjusted since Grady was founded, but there is the same sense of community values that surrounds the organization. Grady has, additionally, built competencies in specific areas, including trauma and emergency, heart, stroke, and other care options....

Grady therefore has adopted a strategy that takes a handful of focus areas, makes them specialties, and then competes as a differentiated player on that basis. By focusing on specific competencies, Grady is better able to execute its strategy and work towards its vision of being a leading provider of healthcare in the United States.
The strategic planning model is then adapted to the individual facility. There are eight facilities within Grady, and each is designed to make a contribution to the overall success of the organization. Thus, strategy is something that is integrated from the top of the organization, while retaining independence among the individual facilities within the Grady family. As such, the vision is an integral part of the strategic plan, as are the values.

The mission statement is, more or less, the ultimate basis of the strategic plan. It defines where the organization operates, what it intends to achieve and how it intends to do this. Key words like compassion, ethics, and fiscal responsibility are all embedded in the strategy and come straight from the mission statement.

Structure

There are many different types of organizational structure. Organizations can be divided by geography, by division or by function. These different structures each have their pros and cons, and therefore the choice of structure will affect the ability of the organization to meet its objectives (Writing, 2014). Grady is based on a divisional structure. It is not geographical since its activities are solely in Fulton and DeKalb counties. It is not by function, which would imply that all heart activities, for example, be one unit within the company and all emergency activities as well. The divisional structure is based on the eight facilities that the company operates. This structure allows for a degree of autonomy for each facility, all while seeking to build a common mission and vision that is guided by the senior management at Grady. Thus, head office is one layer of the organization, underneath of which are the eight facilities. Within each facility, there are multiple units for the different functional specialties.

Leadership

Grady is run by the Grady Memorial Hospital Corporation, which is a nonprofit corporation in charge of administering the hospitals. There are seventeen Board members that lead Grady. The CEO is John Haupert, and he is a career administrator…