At Jones Memorial, a well-known trauma center in a densely populated urban area, administrators and the rest of the strategic planning team are considering adopting a new health information technology system. They anticipate this will help to monitor health care quality and patient safety, improve communication, and streamline patient flow from intake through discharge and billing.

What resources may be needed to successfully implement this change? What considerations related to finances, personnel, and timeline should health care leader-managers and others take into account?

This week, you examine the process of assessing resource needs for a proposed change and allocating the required resources appropriately. For your Course Project, you apply budgeting concepts to evaluate the financial resources that may be needed and use a Program Evaluation Review Technique (PERT) or other tool to create a timeline for your proposed change.

Learning Objectives

Students will:

· Analyze fiscal, human, and time resources needed for meeting unmet health care-related needs

· Apply performance measurement concepts to the creation of metrics for a proposed planned change

· Apply budgeting and timeline concepts to the creation of strategic planning tools

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Learning Resources

Note:  To access this week’s required library resources, please click on the link to the Course Readings List, found in the Course Materials section of your Syllabus.

Required Readings

Marquis, B. L., & Huston, C. J. (2017). Leadership roles and management functions in nursing: Theory and application (9th ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins.

· Chapter 1, “Pitfalls in Using Decision-Making Tools”

· Chapter 10, “Fiscal Planning”

(Note: You may have read this in a previous course.)

See page 23 for an example of a PERT chart. Chapter 10 provides foundational information related to budgeting.

Sare, M. V., & Ogilvie, L. (2010). Strategic planning for nurses: Change management in health care. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett.

· Chapter 5, “Tools from the Strategic Planning Workbench” (pp. 83–100) Strategic Plan Resource Identification Essay.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION 

Strategic Plan Resource Identification

Introduction

If you’re embarking on a strategic plan, this resource identification sheet is here to help. It’s a quick step-by-step guide that will give you an overview of the various processes involved in creating and implementing a strategic plan. In addition, it includes some helpful tips on how to stay motivated throughout the process.

Strategic planning process

Strategic planning is a useful tool for any organization. It can help you identify your goals and how to achieve them, as well as measure success.

There are several steps involved in strategic planning:

• Define the purpose of your plan. What do you want to accomplish? How will this change things for your company or organization? What are some key areas where you want to focus attention?

• Set goals that are measurable, realistic and achievable (e.g., “enhance customer satisfaction by 20%”). You’ll want to make sure these goals aren’t too ambitious or difficult—you don’t want them driving away potential customers! If they’re too challenging of an objective at first glance, then consider breaking down each goal into smaller subgoals until it’s doable (e..g., “within next three months increase customer satisfaction by 10%”).

• Break down each subgoal into manageable chunks so everyone involved knows what needs doing at any given time; this helps prevent procrastination from occurring due to lack of clarity about who should be working on what part-time project/task etcetera…

Client consultation

• Ask your clients what they want.

• Ask your clients what they need.

• Ask your clients how you can help them.

• Ask your clients what they value most in a strategic plan, and why that’s important to them or their business growth goals.

• Ask your clients what they would like to see more of (or less), based on their experience with similar organizations in this industry/sector/etc., and why those items are important or not so much when it comes down to making the final decision on whether or not an organization should be created under these circumstances; again, this question will help determine which strategic plans could possibly fit within certain parameters before going through any further research processes such as analyzing existing literature about successful firms operating within similar industries as well as doing some preliminary brainstorming sessions with peers who’ve worked hard at becoming experts themselves before conducting interviews from different areas including finance professionals specializing in public relations strategy development; marketing managers who specialize in brand management practices related specifically towards branding initiatives targeting individual consumers versus businesses looking for ways increase revenue streams through product placement deals outside traditional advertising channels such as newspapers magazines television commercials radio commercials billboards etcetera…

SWOT analysis and mission statement

SWOT analysis is a tool to help you identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. A mission statement is a statement of your organization’s purpose and goals. It should be concise, clear and easy to understand. A good mission statement can be flexible so that it can change as the business environment changes or when new opportunities emerge from within the organization itself.

Define audience needs

The first step in identifying your audience’s needs is to define them. This can be done in a variety of ways:

• Define the audience by using their demographics, such as age and gender.

• Define the audience by using their names or titles (e.g., “the customer”).

• Define the audience through what they do (e.g., “the sales team”).

Communication objectives

• Define the problem before starting on a solution.

• Set goals before you start.

• Don’t worry about what other people’s goals are or what they’re doing, just set your own and don’t let anything get in the way of achieving them. Be ambitious but realistic! For example: “I want to lose 20 pounds by next week.” Or “I’m going to run my first 5k race next year.”

Budgeting

Budgeting is the process of tracking your spending and making sure that it’s in line with the budget you set. It can be done manually, but if you have access to a spreadsheet program like Excel or Google Sheets, it makes life easier.

Include a contingency fund for unexpected expenses (like replacing equipment after a catastrophe) along with any marketing, advertising or promotions budget. Also include staff training and development as well as other costs associated with running an organization such as insurance premiums and software licenses—the more detailed your budget is, the better able you’ll be to manage it effectively!

Timeline/tactics

If you’re new to strategic planning, it can be hard to know where to start. One great place is with a timeline and tactics. A timeline is a visual representation of all the steps in your strategic plan—from start to finish. And tactics are steps that could be taken right now (like creating an action plan), but might not be completed until later on in the process (like drafting job descriptions).

With these tools at hand, you’ll be able to get an overview of what needs doing and when!

This is a resource identification sheet to help you get started on your strategic plan.

This is a resource identification sheet to help you get started on your strategic plan.

You can use this as a guide for finding resources that will help you create and execute your strategy, but it’s not an exhaustive list of all the options out there. You’re free to add more resources or modify the ones listed here in any way that makes sense for your organization.

Conclusion

We hope you found this resource identification sheet helpful. We would love to hear your feedback on how it can be improved in the comments section below!