Healthcare Seven Key Steps in Strategic Planning

One important point acquired from the reading of Drewniak’s (2010) paper is: strategic planning sets down the roadmap indicating the direction an organization is headed towards, and guides organizations on successfully reaching their intended destination. Strategic plans drive all organizational decision-making, right from technological capabilities and funds to staffing and other requisite resources. Aside from the many corporate analysis approaches employed under strategic planning (such as PEST (Political, Economic, Social and Technological analysis) and SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats)), the fundamental one is: it deals with formal attention to a company’s future. Drewniak (2010) identifies strategic management’s chief objectives as:
1. Determining what must be done
1. Ascertaining the road to excellence
1. Ascertaining who must perform the tasks that must done
Routine issues include finance, governmental policy and directives, reforms, client satisfaction and technology. Healthcare heads must take a step back from time to time to reflect and evaluate strategic plans of firms. Indeed, modeling, strategic thinking, and evaluation are gaining significance as requisites for companies’ survival in the current tempestuous healthcare atmosphere. Strategic planning offers companies a roadmap indicating the direction they are taking and the means to reach there. It drives decisions such as capital, staff, resource and technology related decisions.
Drewniak (2010) asserts that the concept of strategic planning proves pivotal to companies as it offers them direction, besides delineating quantifiable goals. It serves as a valuable instrument in driving everyday decisions besides appraising progress and altering strategies as one achieves progress. For capitalizing on strategic planning, organizations must carefully consider strategic aims outlined, followed by supporting those aims using practical, comprehensively studied, computable benchmarks to assess outcomes.
As pointed out by Pirraglia (2016), a strategy is equivalent to a technique. Envisaging objectives and subsequently describing approaches to adopt for accomplishing aims forms strategic planning’s real essence. Moreover, according to the author, strategy delineates action; another advantage of the strategic planning concept is, inherent action plans arising out of the identification of favored approaches. Lastly, according to Pirraglia (2016), strategic planning proves vital to corporate success. In contrast to traditional business planning, strategic planning entails mission, vision, and thinking creatively. It describes the aspirations one has for one’s firm and not necessarily the means of achieving them. But akin to physical "travel plans," ignorance of one’s destination renders coming up with arrival details a pointless activity. Strategic planning describes the place to which one is headed.
The practical, comprehensively studied, assessable benchmarks to assess outcomes, illustrated in Drewniak’s (2010) work involve commitment to the seven healthcare-related strategic planning stages, which are:
1. Formulation or Analysis of Mission and Vision
2. Functional and Organizational Analysis
3. Development and Selection of Strategic Alternatives
4. Establishment of Strategic Aims
5. Strategy Implementation Approach
6. Establishment of a Proper Budget and Allotment of Resources
7. Analysis of Implemented Plan
Drewniak (2010) believes an inclusive health system needs to get through the strategic planning phase without unjustified bias towards any given stage. This accords greatness to an organization. After perusing the article, I believe that all businesses, including functional healthcare organizations, might struggle with future survival in the absence of an inclusive, detailed plan that attempts to accomplish a preset aim.
The strategic planning process and its outcomes may be equally important to companies. Strategic planning may prove to be especially useful if every staff member belonging to every level and department is involved, by considering their potential input and how their roles and tasks fit the bigger picture.
Finally, it has been established that, as crucial a part as strategic planning plays when it comes to corporate success, no plan proves fruitful if action doesn’t ensue from it.


References
Drewniak, R. (2010). 7 Steps to Healthcare Strategic Planning. Hayes Management Consulting, 1–5.
Pirraglia, W. (2016). Why Is Strategic Planning Important to a Business? | Chron.com. Houston Chronicle, 1–4. Retrieved 11, October, 2017, from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/strategic-planning-important-business-2671.html