Strategic planning in healthcare organizations
Strategic planning is an organizational activity which involves the setting of goals and defining ways to achieve those goals for the growth of an organization (Gopee, & Galloway., 2017). An organization decides on how to achieve its ambitions through strategic planning. The primary purpose of strategic planning is connecting the mission and vision of the organization, and it involves a step by step process which includes the following; creating a vision and mission, performing, environmental scanning, developing goals or objectives for the organization, developing strategies on how to achieve the set goals, implementation the evaluation.
The purpose of strategic planning in an organization is to determine the direction it should take. And it achieves this through many ways which can be; aligning resource to achieve optimal results. Allocating necessary resources to every task, in an organization is vital to achieving the set objectives. Resources act like a bridge where it facilitates and ensures proper functioning of the activities in an organization. Strategic planning is also important in prioritizing financial needs. Because funding might never be adequate, it is crucial when allocating funds to start with the most urgent and in that order to that which is not urgent. Additionally, strategic planning is important in developing actions that can contribute to the growth of the organization. Through planning as well, it is possible to manage and reduce risks (Gopee, & Galloway., 2017). Risks are always involved in every organization; therefore, it is the duty of the leadership of an organization using strategic planning to identify risks, and implement potential control measures to prevent reoccurrence or potential risks.
Several factors affect the future planning of an organization, and they include; budgeting, which is the process of allocating financial resources to various activities in an organization to achieve the desired goals. Proper budgeting in strategic planning secures the future of the organization while poor planning is detrimental to the organization. The other factor is the stakeholder’s needs, which comprises the needs of every individual in the organization because this affects their input, which also affects the achievement of the organization. The available resources is another factor that affect planning where an organization should consider what they have when drafting the plan for the organization. Sticking to the limit of what the resources can cater for, will make the implementation process more comfortable. And finally, the organization should consider its priorities with regard to the revenue generation (Ginter, Duncan, & Swayne., 2018).
The tools that can be used for future planning include the organizational timelines which are very important in ensuring that things are done on time. During the process of planning the organization sets a deadline for every activity they intend to do. The other tool is the action item checklist which all the tasks and activities shall be documented, and upon completion, the item is removed. It directs the organization on what is done and what is remaining. The use of things to do checklist tool can also be used where it is updated daily, and things to do on that particular day is documented. Affinity diagram and matrix diagram tools can also be used because it gathers different language data and defining strengths between the relationship of different items (Austin, Bentkover, & Chait., 2016). Understanding this idea will lead to proper planning and proper allocation of resources. Proper strategic planning is very significant in every organization towards the achievement of the organizational goals.
References
Austin, J., Bentkover, J., & Chait, L. (2016). Tools for Transformational Strategic Planning. In Leading Strategic Change in an Era of Healthcare Transformation (pp. 47-70). Springer, Cham.
Ginter, P. M., Duncan, W. J., & Swayne, L. E. (2018). The strategic management of health care organizations. John Wiley & Sons.
Gopee, N., & Galloway, J. (2017). Leadership and management in healthcare. Sage.
