31+ SAMPLE Health Care Strategic Plan

What Is a Health Care Strategic Plan?

Before we talk about what a health care strategic plan is, we should know all about what is strategic planning first. By definition, strategic planning refers to a particular organization’s process of defining its strategy, or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue its strategy.

A healthcare organization’s strategic plan involves outlining the actionable steps that the organization needs to take in order to achieve or reach the specific goals they’ve set. While strategies greatly differ between different levels of the organization, their sole purpose is to bring their actions into alignment with its stated mission or values. Nowadays, various health care providers require more patient-centric, value-based approaches in their strategic plans. They also have to recalibrate their health care strategies so that it suits the current market trends and the ever-changing approaches to patient care.

Importance of Strategic Planning in Health Care

Here are the reasons why strategic planning is an essential part of a healthcare organization:

It improves communication across all chains. It’s easy for departments at all levels to become puzzled about what’s going on. Employees and stakeholders alike want to ensure that your organization has a solid, long-term future ahead. They want to know where your company is going and what steps it will take to get there. Effective planning in healthcare management can aid in the creation of clarity and the improvement of communication. Your strategic plan should address the critical issues, as well as your organization’s vision and goals, as well as the steps to get there. Employees and stakeholders will have increased trust and confidence in your organization.It is important for developing and sharing a vision. Keeping this reason in mind, you can have an impact at all levels of your organization. Employees will be dedicated and motivated to assist you in realizing your vision. Stakeholders will have the trust and clarity they require to make sound financial decisions. Strategic planning for healthcare facilities that are clearly developed, executed, and communicated can assist each of your individuals in carrying out your vision, leading to a fulfilling future.It increases employee motivation and engagement. Every one of your employees wants to be noticed and heard. Being acknowledged by their leaders can have a significant impact on their productivity, engagement, and safety management. Every employee desires the authority to make decisions that will benefit your organization. This also encourages them to go above and beyond the minimum acceptable standards outlined in the job description or performance evaluation. Employees will not be motivated to improve themselves for a company that lacks a clear vision or a well-executed action plan.It provides transformational leadership and authority. Transformational leadership is defined as a style of leadership that motivates your employees to work harder and achieve more. It employs techniques that have been cited in the organizational behavior literature. Transformational leaders clearly communicate their organization’s vision, have faith in their employees, and are capable of producing high levels of performance. A critical component of strategic management is assisting your employees in understanding how their roles can contribute to your organization’s mission and vision.It increases team cooperation and collaboration. Teamwork and cooperation are essential components of providing high-quality healthcare. Employees must collaborate to ensure the success of your company. Every healthcare industry needs to work together to improve its performance and service. In healthcare, effective strategic planning models can bring your employees together to provide quality care, excellent customer service, and increased performance.

What Are the Different Models of Strategic Planning?

Here are some of the different strategic planning models:

Basic Model – This model, also known as the simple model, is frequently used by newer organizations that do not have a history of strategic planning to help guide them in making decisions. It’s also a good model for any organization that doesn’t have the time or resources to devote to in-depth strategic planning. If your organization does not already have a mission statement, you must create one. A mission statement is defined as a synopsis of your objectives designed to inspire and transform the organization. The next step is to determine what objectives must be met in order to fulfill the mission statement. Break down the tasks that will be required to achieve those objectives. Plan, track, and report on your progress.Balanced Scorecard – The Balanced Scorecard is one of the most well-known strategic planning models, designed to provide managers with a comprehensive overview of their companies’ operations in a short period of time. The balanced scorecard model is focused on four concerns: time, quality, performance and service, and cost. It takes into account both financial and operational metrics to provide valuable context about how a business has performed in the past, is performing now, and is likely to perform in the future. This model of strategic planning is ideal for businesses looking to break up higher-level goals into more specific, measurable objectives.Objectives and Key Results – This model, as the name suggests, revolves around translating broader organizational goals into objectives and tracking their key results. The framework is based on identifying three to five attainable goals and the three to five outcomes that should result from each of them. Once those are in place, you can plan initiatives around them. After you’ve identified those reference points, you’ll need to decide on the best metrics for measuring their success. And once you’ve completed the projects based on those ideal outcomes, you evaluate their success by assigning a score from 0 to 1 or 0% to 100%.Theory of Change – The Theory of Change (TOC) model is based on organizations establishing long-term goals and “working backward” to achieve them. This planning model is best suited for organizations that want to embark on projects such as team building, initiative planning, or action planning. It differs from other models in that it can assist you in distinguishing between desired and actual outcomes. It also involves stakeholders more actively in the planning process by requiring them to model exactly what they want from a project. Hoshin Planning – The Hoshin Planning model is a process that promotes active and open communication throughout an organization in order to reduce friction and inefficiency. Everyone in an organization, regardless of department or seniority, is made aware of the company’s goals in this model. Hoshin Planning is based on the idea that effective communication fosters cohesion, but this requires more than leadership contributions. According to this model, results from each level must be shared with management. Blue Ocean Strategy – The blue ocean strategy is a model of strategic planning that is intended to take your product to a market with little to no competition. As a result, the research is heavily skewed toward identifying a profitable niche, such as one in which there are few businesses offering a product that people have expressed an interest in and there is little to no pricing pressure.

Step by Step Process in Health Care Strategic Planning

Here are the steps that can be taken to implement an effective health care strategic plan:

1. Develop a Mission/Vision Statement and Review It

Despite the fact that many healthcare organizations have developed a vision, mission, goals, and objectives, these elements must still be reviewed on a regular basis. The reason for this is the constantly changing environment and business constraints imposed on healthcare organizations by the government, payors, competition, physicians, patients, vendors, and so on. Each internal department’s vision and mission must be aligned with and supportive of the overall business strategy.

An organization’s mission is the reason it exists. Typically, the mission is expressed in the form of a statement that conveys a sense of purpose to employees, patients, physicians, and the community. The mission establishes the tone for the goals and objectives.

2. Conduct a Business and Operational Analysis

Understanding internal strengths and weaknesses, as well as external threats and opportunities, is a key goal of strategic planning. It is critical to involve stakeholders from across the healthcare organization – as well as vendors – to provide their perspectives. This involvement will not only improve your plan but will also foster organizational ownership, which is essential for the plan’s execution and sustainability.

3. Develop and Select Strategic Options

Based on the inputs that were taken, all possible strategies should be developed. The list should then be narrowed down to strategies that are consistent with the healthcare organization’s guiding principles. Guiding principles define the “ground rules” and parameters that will guide your organization’s decision-making. Will your organization, for example, consider merging with or acquiring another organization in order to achieve its objectives? Do you want to outsource specific tasks? Your organizational capacity is another decision-making criterion. As an example, suppose you have a goal. Are there enough physicians to support an increase in volume if the goal is to increase revenue in orthopedics by a certain percentage? Do they specialize in the services that will help them achieve that goal?

4. Establish Strategic Objectives

This step will narrow the listed possible strategies in the previous step by applying various models to each strategy in order to determine the effect it will have on the healthcare organization. This step is also where key measures and timelines are established or validated. Once the strategies are tested in this way, they can now be put together to form the strategic plan. It should be noted that the plan’s objectives should be SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound).

5. Create a Strategy Execution Plan

This step is important since a plan must be fully developed in order to implement the chosen strategic options in the plan. In order to be successful, organizational ownership of the plan is needed which includes not only the executive sponsorship but also the active involvement of all the staff members in the healthcare organization. After developing the execution plan, it is important to communicate it to all levels of the organization.

Right before the execution of the plan, keep in mind that it is also critical for the leadership to be able to allocate proper funding. staffing, or other resources to specific initiatives. Leadership commitment on budget and resources must be received by the organization before they can proceed.

6. Perform Constant Progress Reviews

Constant and ongoing progress reviews are one of the critical success factors for effective strategy deployment. The deployment must include appropriate reporting mechanisms. When issues, challenges, deviations, or obstacles are identified, decisions and remediation are required – some of which may result in a change in strategic direction. As a result, it is critical to determine who is involved in the review process and what is reviewed.

FAQs

What is a strategy?

The term strategy can have many different meanings. In the context of strategic planning, it is defined as describing how the ends will be achieved by the means (how the goals will be achieved by the resources). To expand on this definition, it generally involves setting strategic goals, determining the actions to achieve the set goals, and mobilizing various resources for the purpose of executing the actions.

What is the difference between a strategic plan and a tactical plan?

A strategic plan supports the vision and mission statements of the organization by outlining the high-level plan developed to achieve both. Strategic plans generally provide a broad, long-term picture. Strategic plans also influence the development of tactical plans.

A tactical plan, on the other hand, answers the question “How is a strategic plan achieved?” It outlines the actions taken in order to achieve short-term goals. Tactical plans usually only have a narrower focus and can be broken down into the departmental or unit level. Tactical plans also outline what each department of an organization needs to achieve, how it must do so, and who has the responsibility for implementation.

What is a strategy map?

A strategy map refers to a diagram that is used to document the primary strategic goals that are being pursued by an organization or a management team. Its purpose is also to give the members of an organization a clear line of sight into how the tasks that they do link to their organization. It also shows how the organization will convert its initiatives and resources into tangible outcomes.

If a strategic plan is properly developed and implemented, a healthcare organization can reap its benefits, such as developing a coherent and defensible base for making various decisions, improving the allocation of its resources, identifying high and low-performing areas of the organization, and standardizing the operations of the organization. Having an effective strategic plan also establishes the steps needed to be done in order to deliver high-quality care. A well thought-out strategic plan can also increase teamwork within the organization, increase engagement within its employees/members, and most of all can improve performance accountability. In this article, examples of an effective health care strategy plan are available for you to download and use personally as a reference should you need to make one for your healthcare organization.