Healthcare Strategic Planning, Third Edition

Alan Zuckerman’s latest strategic planning book, Healthcare Strategic Planning, now in its third edition, takes a contemporary look at a traditional business planning process to show the nation’s hospitals what they need to do differently to meet the demands of operating under health care reform.

What type of planning techniques and strategies will help hospitals and systems manage near-term pressures and achieve long-term goals during the current period of uncertainty and instability? How should mission, vision, strategy, and values statements be reshaped, sharpened, and expanded? How can pitfalls that derail planning and execution be avoided? How does health care strategic planning stack up against planning practices outside of the health care industry?

When the health care landscape was less volatile, ad hoc planning, educated guesses, and intuition allowed some health care organizations to survive, although many have now succumbed to the current wave of hospital and system consolidation and closure. Zuckerman points out that these approaches alone will not serve hospitals and systems well as they contend with an increasingly competitive and financially unstable operating environment and the still uncertain impact of healthcare reform initiatives. “Planning that is truly strategic will distinguish those providers at risk for closure from those who will thrive,” commented Zuckerman.