Building a strategy in the healthcare industry is a multifaceted and constantly changing endeavor. Development and execution of the right strategic plan will deliver the necessary added value for your healthcare organization. Developing the initial strategy requires the inclusion of multiple influencers. Over time, all of these influencers change, and your strategic plan has to respond. So, where should you be seeing the influence of strategy? And how will the practical implementation of strategic planning determine daily operations?
Translating influencers of strategic development into daily service delivery means walking the path from market requirements, to internal resources, to daily implementation.
In some previous Vertical articles, we put the topics of strategy development and added value on the table. Developing your organizational strategy does not immediately translate into added value and improved outcomes, there is a road to be walked to accomplish this. A healthcare organization’s strategy cannot be confined to confidential business plan documents. Communicating strategic principles throughout the organization is critical for success. Directing the use of time, money, and professional focus should be guided by the principles being communicated. Your organizational strategy should tell you, and all the other personnel, how to:
- Prioritize – assuring that tasks, projects, resources, and other activities will have the correct impact on strategic goals.
- Utilize resources – directing time, finances, and personnel to support the right activities.
- Evaluate performance – identifying the key indicators of evaluation to assess the progress in the right direction.
- Continuously improve – progress towards better outcomes
- Manage risk – mitigating potential problems that could damage the short term and long term directions of the organization.
These above elements are part of your strategic guidebook that is directing all the required resources towards accomplishing the same goals. Planning and budgeting can direct the resources but, ultimately, it is the daily ways of working that will define the success or failure.
Daily implementation of your planned strategic principles is where “the boots meet the pitch”. All of the professionals in your organization are there to support the organization’s goals, and their daily actions must reflect this. But, if critical players on your team have not been provided all the details of the goals, their expertise will not be pointed in the same direction. If four of the eleven players on the field don’t understand the game plan and the intent to win, then the game will be lost. Ensuring there is good leadership in your organization will translate into strong communication of the strategic direction, pointing everyone on the team towards the same collaborative goals.
Frontline testing of strategic plan and service design elements will ensure that they are supporting the end goals of the organization.
Maintenance of high quality service delivery and treatment outcomes will be a result of the developed blueprint for daily operations. Duplicating the actions that deliver positive outcomes requires a process oriented approach. Consistent reproduction of quality outcomes results in real and lasting added value. As highlighted in a previous Vertical article, your added value concepts must include:
- Patient-centered care
- Early intervention and preventative action
- Outcome-focused treatment processes
- Implementation of new healthcare technology, and of course
- Cost effectiveness while maintaining or, ideally, improving the quality of care
Development and success of these concepts will not happen by accident. Communicating the goals, delivering the services, assessing the outcomes, and then improving the delivery will make the service design better. Success will be dependent on continually improving the service design with clear intention of improving the ways of working.
This process of communicating, implementing, and improving stems from well coordinated strategic planning.
Topics to examine:
- How is the strategic planning of your healthcare organization?
- Has your organization defined the important concepts?
- And how are the concepts put into focus?
- Are the solutions “trickling down” to the frontline healthcare professionals?
- Are the leaders in your organization successfully communicating strategic goals?
Strategic planning is a process of identifying requirements, focusing on specific concepts, and developing the right concepts to move the organization in the right direction. Experienced consultants can assist with the process of asking the right questions and putting lens on the topics that need to be examined. Who is asking the questions in your organization, and are they placing the lens over the right topics?
