Lecia Scotford – Reasons Why Strategic Planning is Important in Healthcare
The impact of the current economic crisis strongly affected private Healthcare. Non-compliance in the state payment of values (through public agreements), increase in medical glosses, delays in payments by health plan operators: the uncertain environment of the sector is evidence of the importance of having a good planning Healthcare strategy. The health corporations former Chief Operating Officer Lecia Scotford suggests that the institution can be prepared for the future by identifying potential obstacles and making the necessary adaptations to neutralize threats and take advantage of opportunities.
The problem is that most segment managers do not know what efficient planning should look like, or they make the wrong decisions, cutting investments. Where they cannot, do not maintain good communication with employees about the mission of the company. So, thinking about these difficulties, we prepared todays newsletter to clarify how this process works.
What is Hospital Strategic Planning?
Strategic planning is a corporate process created to facilitate the achievement of the desired situation in the future, through studies to diagnose critical factors that may impede the growth of the company. It is about establishing a path that must be followed systemically in the long term, designed to strengthen the organization with the ability to better interact with external factors. In this way, it is possible to adapt to any scenario reducing uncertainties.
It is very simple: strategic planning is a compass oriented towards the future, serving to communicate to employees, patients, and investors its mission (the companys differential in the market), its vision (what the company wants to be in the future) and its values (principles that guide the decisions of the organization).
According to Lecia Scotford, this process is especially important when it comes to the health market due to the weak elaboration of projects by the sector. In an environment with a high probability of having imbalances, in which the arrival of an epidemic can cause an imbalance in the management of beds, and in which strong exchange rate increases compromise the purchase of medicines and equipment (many are imported) and in which the emergence of new impositions of health standardizing bodies can cause the insolvency of some institutions, it is important to anticipate the scenarios.
The financial crisis of many health institutions is a consequence of the lack of sufficient hospital strategic planning.
How is this Process Structured?
Quantitative and Prescription Instruments The time has come to transform the mission into objectives, challenges, goals, and indicators so that everything that must be done so that the hospital is a reference can be specified. The process of transforming theory into practice can be done more easily through the strategic tool that aims to translate the mission and values of the company into goals and objective indicators for each of the employees involved.
The system allows the monitoring of the main Healthcare variables (financial and non-financial indicators), facilitating hospital management, managing the performance of each employee, and changing strategies according to the modification of the scenario. It works in 4 perspectives: financial, patient, internal processes, learning and growth. The monitoring of the strategy through indicators should be done via health management systems that present facilities such as data matching and the possibility of integration with Big Data solutions.
Evaluation Control
After all, that has been explained, comes the stage of evaluation of results, performance measures, the establishment of standards to follow, analysis of deviations, and taking corrective actions to close the process well.
As Lecia Scotford suggests, not to forget to set realistic goals, discuss planning with the managers of each area, do not leave the provision for debtors (medical glosses and defaults) until later, and put the process into practice in stages. These measures guarantee the future of your hospital. Take the opportunity to sign our newsletter and continue knowing everything that refers to the health sector.
We consider that an aspect fundamental in planning programs and work processes for Healthcare services, is the development of strategic plans with alignment and homologation to health policies, not only of the institutions, but of the government-oriented strategies to strengthen and continuous improvement of health care processes.