Strategic Healthcare Management (Research Paper Sample)

Strategic Healthcare Management
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Strategic Health Care Management
Strategic management refers to the process through which health care organizations formulate and implement strategies that help in achieving the set goals. The process begins with establishment of where the organization is going and what needs to be done in order to ensure that the desired goals are achieved. Through strategic management, the managers in the health care organizations are able to identify the challenges that are being faced and what needs to be done in order to resolve them. The managers are also able to evaluate the environment which the organization is faced with and what it will need to do in order to ensure that continues offering its services effectively (Coleman, 2003).
The process of strategic management allows the managers in the health care organization to focus on the needs of the people they serve and how best they can meet these needs. The patients in hospitals for instance expect to get the best services and attention and it is the responsibility of the management to ensure that they are well attended to. Strategic planning in this case ensures that it maintains well qualified and motivated staffs to offer good services to the patients as well as ensuring that the needed resources are availed at the right time (Stead, 2004).
Strategic management in health care organization plays a critical role in ensuring that all the departments and employees are working towards achievement of a common goal. The strategies set by the management are normally communicated to all the members of the organization where everyone gets to understand the role that they need to play in order to achieve the overall desired outcome. In this way the operations of the organization become more streamlined as each department works towards ensuring it delivers its mandate (Swayne, 2013).
Another purpose of Strategic management is that it helps organizations to set priorities on what needs to be done and the best way in which the resources available should be allocated in order to ensure that the needs of the organization are adequately met (Burns, 2006). The process of strategic management involves establishing the desired outcomes and coming up with the best mechanism in which the available resources can be allocated in order to ensure that the needs of the organization are met. Health care organizations for instance have to ensure that they meet the needs of the patients that they attend to despite the limitation of resources (Hannagan, 2002).
Strategic decision making model
The strategic decision making model for health care organization involves various steps as outlined below;
* External analysis
This involves examination of the external environment which the health care organization is exposed to. External analysis helps the management to identify the opportunities it can take advantage of in the process of strategy formulation as well as the threats that need to be taken into consideration. The health care organizations establish the demand for their services from the society, the availability of resources such as skilled labour in the market as well as economic and technological changes (Verma, 2012).
* Internal analysis
The weaknesses and strengths of a healthcare organization are established in the process of strategic management. This information is critical in crafting the way forward as the organization focuses on its strengths as well as working towards overcoming the weakness in order to achieve good service delivery and growth. The healthcare organization analyzes the skills availability among the employees, the facilities, equipment and material at their disposal that they can use to offer services (Ellsworth, 2002).
* Strategic direction
After the internal and external environment of the healthcare organization has been assessed, the next step is to identify the strategic direction that it will need to take. At this stage the goals are set which will help the organization in improving its service delivery, operational efficiency and achieve long term growth. The strategic direction generally helps to identify where the organization needs to be in future (Cole, 2007).
* Strategic plans
Once the strategic direction has been identified, the management comes up with specific plans that are to be implemented and which will help in achieving the goals. The strategic plans could involve the entire organization or specific departments. The strategic plans take into consideration the opportunities and threats that the organization is exposed to as well as the internal strengths and weakness (Chau, 2010).
* Implementation
The strategic plans that have been formulated are then communicated to the members of the organization. Each department and employee gets to learn of the role that they need to play in order to ensure the overall plan is successful (Brown, 2002). At this stage, the necessary resources are provided for each department to make their process of implementation successful. Training is also undertaken for the employees when there is need to ensure they have proper understanding (Craig, 2003).
* Monitoring and evaluation
The management has the responsibility of ensuring that the plans that have been set are implemented accordingly. Each of the managers monitors the process of implementation in their departments while the senior managers monitor the implementation process for the entire organization. Evaluation of the implementation process is done from time to time to establish whether the desired goals are being achieved or whether changes need to be made to the original plans (Martin, 2010).
There are various strategic choices that can be made by the organizations in the health care environment. One of these would be to improve the quality of services that are offered to the patients in the health care centre. Good service delivery in this case will involve aspects of timely service, ensuring there is a clean environment, ensuring that all the appropriate services are offered to patients at the right time and that there are no reported cases of errors in medical service delivery. The process of strategic management helps the managers to come up with ways in which they can be able to streamline operations and ensure that all these strategies are achieved (Kaluzny, 2012).
Another strategic choice for the health care organization would be to ensure that they work with staffs highly qualified and able to offer efficient services to the patients who visit the organization. This will mean coming up with a recruitment strategy that will ensure that the organization is able to attract, hire and retain employees who are highly qualified and experienced (Zuckerman, 2012). It could also mean that the health care organization comes up with a training program that will help to train the existing employees and make them understand what is expected of them in order to deliver quality services. In addition, the strategy will involve coming up with a plan to ensure that the welfare of the employees is taken care of and that there are incentives to ensure that they are continuously motivated (Ansoff, 2007).
In addition, the organizations can come up with strategic choices aimed at adopting technology in order to streamline most of the operations in the organization. Through adoption of technology the organizations for instance can be able to automate some of the services such as registration and enquiries which reduces the labour requirements and time taken to serve the customers. In addition, technology will be useful in improving communication with the customers hence getting their feedback easily and also relaying information in a faster way (Walston, 2014).
Barriers to implementation of choices
With the strategies that have been set, healthcare organizations are able to continuously monitor their progress and whether they are working in line with the originally set strategies. In some cases, deviations from the original strategies arise and it is important that this kind of deviation is established early enough and necessary amendments made (Savage, 2010).
There are however various challenges or barriers that arise with the process of strategic management for the organization. One of the main challenges of strategic management is change management and adaptability. Strategic management for instance involves coming up with new strategies which are determined by the environment and organization analysis (Hannagan, 2002). A challenge however arises in the fact that the new strategies may not be embraced by the staff in the health care organization. Resistance to change arises when the employees want things to remain as they were as they fear that changes could bring about negative impacts. This therefore poses a challenge to the process of strategic management in health care organization (Jooste, 2006).
Another key challenge for the implementation of strategic choices in healthcare organization is limitation of resources. In most cases health care organizations are faced with the challenge of limited resources which means that there has to be an effective strategy on how the available resources can be adequately utilised to meet all the needs. Some of the healthcare facilities for instance have limited facilities and equipment to be able to meet the needs of the patients as the set goals. Limitation of financial resources could also mean that the strategies that have been set are too ambitious to be achieved. For health organization in the remote places, there could be limitation of resources such as electricity, water, communication and transport infrastructure which makes it difficult to achieve some of the strategic choices (Pinczuk, 2004).
Limitation of skills in some of the healthcare organizations poses a...