Strategy versus Operations: The battle to stay on track

Health care organizations today are continually faced with competing priorities for resource allocation. As the old adage goes, “the squeaky wheel gets the grease,” and most often, the squeaky wheel is an operational or infrastructure priority, such as technology demands, FTE needs (vs. workforce development), facility improvement (vs. strategic facility planning), budgets, marketing, department-and specific […]

Organizational Direction: More than Words on Paper

Identifying your organizational direction is a key activity within any strategic planning process. The components of organizational direction describe your hospital or system’s reason for existence and frames where you wish to be in the future.  In our era of market instability and post-reform adjustment, organizational direction can help provide the clarity your system needs […]

Why Strategic Planning?

Strategic planning for health care organizations is more important than ever before given the uncertainties about health care reform and rapidly changing market dynamics. In the past, strategic plans have been used to identify growth opportunities and prioritize capital needs; however, in the post-reform era, growth does not necessarily mean expansion, but rather integrating high-quality […]