Important Elements of a Healthcare Organization\'s Strategic Plan

Nursing: Management and Leaderships

Every good healthcare institution has a strategic plan of goals and methods for reaching those goals. Because it is a business, a healthcare institution has some goals and methods that can be found in other kinds of businesses. Because it is a provider of special services, a healthcare institution has special goals and methods that are unique to healthcare. At a minimum, a healthcare institution's strategic plan has goals and methods regarding patient safety, data management and informatics, internal and external marketing, and hazard preparedness. Goals and methods in these categories can help a healthcare institution start with and constantly improve its strategy for business and healthcare success.

Body: Strategic Plan of an Institution

An institution's strategic plan is a carefully developed description of its long-term goals and its plan of action for reaching those goals. Major institutions in all walks of life develop strategic plans for their success. Healthcare institutions are businesses and therefore have some goals and action plans that are very similar to other institutions; however, healthcare institutions also provide specialized services with trained staff and have specialized needs; therefore, healthcare institutions also have unique goals and plans of action in their strategic plans

a. Patient Safety Goals

One of a healthcare institution's primary purposes is the care of its patients. While a healthcare institution is caring for a patient, accidents and medical errors can lead to a patient's harm. Therefore, perfect patient safety, for which a healthcare institution strives by requiring reporting, analyzing and ultimately preventing accidents and medical errors (Harrison, 2010, p. 56), must be one of the long-term goals of a healthcare institution's strategic plan (Harrison, 2010, p. 26). No matter how safe patients are, a healthcare institution constantly strives to achieve the ideal situation in which 100% of the patients are 100% safe. By focusing on that ideal, the healthcare institution has a continuous commitment to improve patient safety (Harrison, 2010, p. 56). In fact, patient safety is such an important part of a healthcare institution's strategic plan that healthcare institutions sometimes develop many detailed systems for safeguarding patients, depending on the situation (Harrison, 2010, p. 76).

In addition to idealistic considerations for patient safety, healthcare institutions have patient safety as a goal for practical business reasons. The U.S. Department of Health and state health agencies govern some of a healthcare institution's licenses and certifications and they are focused on patient safety; therefore, in order to keep vital operating licenses, a healthcare institution must have well-developed and accepted goals and action plans for patient safety (Harrison, 2010, p. 84). Still another practical reason for striving for the ideal of patient safety is the costs associated with breaches in patient safety, which can include fines by agencies and judgments in malpractice suits (Harrison, 2010, p. 144). For several idealist and practical reasons, patient safety must be a goal in every healthcare institution's strategic plan.

b. Data Management and Informatics

Data management is the collection, analysis and use of data as a valuable resource (Harrison, 2010, pp. 107-8). Informatics is the multi-disciplinary use of healthcare, computer science, communications, hard science and social science in order to analyze and constantly improve all the disciplines (Gordon, 2014, p. 23). Healthcare institutions use data management and informatics to obtain, store, retrieve and use information as effectively as possible (Gordon, 2014, p. 23). This allows them to prepare strategic plans, implement the plans and continually improve the plans and performance of the healthcare institution. Due to the constantly evolving scientific, medical, computer, communications and social science knowledge and equipment, a healthcare institution must ensure that it is constantly aware of the information provided by its data, using it wisely to make and improve its strategic plan, and keep current with developments that can hurt or help its position as a healthcare provider and a business (Gordon, 2014, p. 23). Consequently, data management and informatics are vital for the healthcare institution's success in reaching its goals of high quality patient care and thriving as a business.

c. Marketing

Both internal and external marketing are important for a healthcare institution's strategic plan. Internal marketing consists of using a highly capable staff, particularly medical staff, to constantly improve service, strengthen the institution's culture of learning and strengthen the staff's commitment to the institution (Tsai, 2014, p. 152). Internal marketing is important for strategic plans because it makes staff mindful and supportive of the organization's goals as they constantly improve their knowledge and skills. External marketing, which is concerned with business issues such as revenues, control of costs, productivity, accounts receivable, and customer satisfaction (Boden, 2012, p. 192), is concerned with making a healthcare institution competitive and profitable as a business. Successful external marketing allows a healthcare institution to thrive as a business, helps the institution use income from one profitable activity to fund other unprofitable but mission-based activities, gives the institution valuable information on when to promote certain projects and close down other projects, and allows the institution to invest in more modern facilities and equipment, enhancing the quality of care (Harrison, 2010, p. 25). Internal and external marketing are both vital to a healthcare institution's goals and plans for reaching those goals; therefore, they are vital for the institution's strategic plan.

d. Hazards Preparedness

Healthcare institutions have limited staff and resources that can be overwhelmed in the case of a hazard or disaster affecting a large number of the community; consequently, healthcare institutions are urged by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to prepare for major hazards and disasters such as mass shootings, anthrax, bombings, earthquakes and other calamities (Levi, Lieberman, & Lang, 2013, pp. 52-3). Hazard preparedness is a necessary part of a healthcare institution's strategic plan because it supports the institution's goals of providing effective medical care to the community and surviving/thriving as an institution, even in the event of terrible disasters (Levi, Lieberman, & Lang, 2013, p. 53). Supporting those important goals, hazard preparation is an important part of a healthcare institution's strategic plan.