Importance Of Strategic Planning In Healthcare

Importance of strategic planning in health care industry

Fogg (1994) suggests the following benefits of strategic planning are it secures the future for the organization and its leaders by crafting a viable future of health care industry. It provides a road map, direction, and focus for the organization’s future in the industry, where it wants to go and the routes to get there. It lets each part of the organization align its activities with the direction of the corporation in a continuous process. It also sets priorities for the crucial strategic tasks, including the complex, burning issues such as lack of direction and growth, lack of profitability, and organizational ineffectiveness that everybody talks and knows about while wondering why

A strategic plan and well-articulated vision that is properly developed, executed and communicated can elevate an organization above its circumstances and connect it and its people with a future of possibility that is both inspiring and achievable. It is only when individuals and organizations live and operate in vision that they will ultimately realize a better future one that is much more compelling and powerful than their current state. An aspect of organizational behaviour getting more attention today and increasingly being recognized as a critical success factor for organizational performance is employee engagement. Employee engagement impacts everything from patient safety, quality and service delivery to innovation, problem-solving and financial performance. The level of employee engagement in the organization is an expression of employee beliefs and attitudes that is made manifest by the degree of effort teams and individuals give otherwise known as discretionary effort. Every employee makes a decision as to the amount of discretionary effort they give at work every shift. Discretionary effort refers to the extra effort an employee has to give. Tapping into this employee discretionary effort inspires them to give over and above the "minimum acceptable standards" as outlined in a job description or performance evaluation

For many employees it boils down to this thought: Why give extra effort for an organization going nowhere? This is a matter that moves beyond transactional leadership into the realm of transformational leadership. Transformational leadership is about a leadership style that transforms an organizational culture and inspires its people to perform better. Transformational leaders use techniques well-documented in today 's organizational behaviour literature. Moreover, transformational leaders are skilled at communicating the organization 's vision, the steps to get there and each employee 's key role for its realization. Transformational leaders are effective in getting followers to understand and believe in their own individual and collective abilities to achieve higher levels of performance. Helping employees understand the important role they play in achieving the organization 's mission and vision is crucial. Moreover, using a management-by-objectives or MBO process is needed to help everyone in the organization work together and create a common understanding. In this approach, individual employee objectives and plans are created in alignment with overall organizational. In addition, an effective MBO process includes regular reports on progress towards