Strategic Management of Health Care

Strategic Management Health Care

First student: The text notes that there are several elements to action plans. First, the management needs to set objectives for action plans, the resources required to make the plans work, a plan for measuring results, what actions are going to be taken (Swayne, Duncan and Ginter, 2008).

Right now, Steve Morgan needs to set some objectives. That is the most important thing. He has an idea about some of the problems that his organization faces but at this point the critical factor is going to be to determine what needs to be done to solve the many problems that the company faces, to find a way to prioritize everything. So setting the objectives is probably the most important right now. Objectives are the starting point, and everything flows from there. Morgan therefore needs to diagnose what is wrong, and then operationalize that as part of the action plan. Only once the objectives are known can Morgan start with identifying the tasks that will be used, and determining the resources that will need to be used as well (MindTools, 2014).

The resources aspect is actually I would say the least important. The reason for this is that resource constraints are actually some of the problem. But when you are trying to build your business, and improve your profitability, you figure out first what needs to be done, then you worry about the details of how it will be done later. Morgan can always adjust the action plan to reflect any resource constraints that might exist. If we think about the human resource issue specifically, if it requires a little bit more money or personnel to have the new physicians to increase capacity, that is well worth it. So the action plan has to start with the objectives, and those should be aligned with other elements of strategy, and resources is probably less important for Steve Morgan to think about right now (Healthfield, 2014).

I think this is true of a lot of action plans. You always have to start with the objectives, and the resources are more a constraint and you figure out those details later, but you start with that overall vision that drives the strategy for the entire process. This is true no matter what about the company, and is based on sound strategic management principles. It is also worth noting that in this case, the output measures are mostly known. For example, Morgan knows that the organization needs more physicians, and he knows that he wants profits to grow at the same rate as the revenues. So the measures are defining the problem and will also inform the performance targets, since to know you have a problem implies that you have an idea about what a good outcome looks like.

Second student: Chapter 10 of the textbook is where you go to learn about action plans. In this chapter, it is stated that action plans consist of objectives, actions, resources and measures. This is so that the problem can first be understood, then some ideas about how to solve the problem are generated, and resources deployed, and lastly that the organization will evaluate the action plan on the basis of its results. It is also true that any good action plan will have a strong communications plan.

I feel that in this case the communications part is the most important. The organization is going through a period of change, and one of the factors that will dictate whether or not a change activity is successful is communication. Whatever plan you come up with, management guys like Steve Morgan need to be able to communication that plan effectively, to get buy-in, achieve motivation and generally to information everybody within the organization how will need to implement this plan as to what it is, why you are doing it, and how they can help. There needs to be a state of awareness created about the plan, and you have to make the implementation tangible for people, so that they truly understand their role in the process. That is how you have a strong communications plan (NBRI, 2014)

The least important element is the resources. Communication is about getting the human resources on board. The other resources, if the action plan pays for itself, those other resources will be made available. So Morgan does not really need to worry about that aspect of the action plan right now.

Student 3. The text outlines several elements of an action plan, those being to have objectives, to have resources, to have a plan and then being able to measure the effectiveness of the plan. So with these, it is reasonable to think that the measures are the most important part. The measures and the objectives are basically the same thing -- what the company wants to achieve with this plan. The Emergency Care Group has several issues that it wants to resolve, so there is going to be a fairly extensive set of objectives that will drive and guide this action plan. What the plan is and how it will be achieved are also pretty important, but you should always know where you are going before you start driving.

The least important element of the action plan, to be honest I do not feel that there is an element you want to call least important. The book is pretty clear that all of the elements are important, because they work together (No author, 2014). I do not think that you can have a good action plan by not worrying about one element. The resources are important, because that is how you are going to implement the plan. But knowing what you are going to do is also important, and having objectives and measures are also important, because they too guide the process. So by all reasonable counts, it seems that the most important thing is that Steve Morgan looks at all elements of the action plan and gets to work solving those problems for Emergency Care Group.

Reflection. The action plan is an important part of strategic management. While the assignment was a bit tough because there's not much literature on this one, the book does a good of getting you to think about what an action plan looks like. The action plan is such an important part of strategy, that it would be difficult to implement strategy without it.