Strategic Issues Facing Health Care Organizations Paper Example

1. Define the concept of strategy and discuss the model of strategic management.

The strategy involves the top management of a firm selecting the course action from existing alternatives, which primary objective is to meet the goal of the organization. The strategy is merely the means to achieve the purposes of the company while strategic management is the process through which the formulation and achievement of the objectives are conducted (Hill et al., 2015). The fundamental elements of a strategy include a unified comprehensive and integrated plan, proper implementation to ensure the primary objectives are achieved, and strategic advantage related to challenges of the environment.

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The definition of strategy can be defined as an action that is either inclusive or exclusive of the real setting. Strategy as an action that is inclusive of objective setting is characterized distinctively as the determination of long-term goals and objectives, adoption of the course of action, and allocation of resources (Hill et al., 2015). Strategy as an action exclusive of objective setting involves the determination of the forces in the environment by the organizations and then deploying its resources to counter them to ensure their survival and sustainability.

The model of strategic management can be defined as the tool that is employed by the managers with the aim of planning and implementing business strategy. It usually has primary six stages including mission, objectives, strategy formulation, application, and control. The mission is the fundamental aspect of strategic management model whose purpose is to indicate the goals of the company. Objectives are the measurable goals who purpose is to help achieve the mission. Situation analysis is the stage where various measurement such as SWOT is conducted to assess the current environment. Strategy formulation creates a strategy to achieve the goals of the firm in the current market environment. The application is actual implementation of the strategies while control is used to make any changes in the model after implementation.

2. What are the approaches for conducting external environmental analysis? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each? Explain? Please Choose one approach and apply it to one of the stakeholders below only choose one.

Health system and Hospital

One of the approaches that can be used to scan the environment of the health systems and the hospital is the systematic approach. This approach involves the collection of the forces in the environment systematically. The data to be collected include the policies of the government, changes in regulation and legislation and other information that are related to customer and markets (Ginter et al., 2018). A systematic approach is not only crucial in the strategic management but also the daily operational activities since this factors affect the decision making.

The primary advantage of the systematic approach is it improves the adaptability of the organizations to changes in the environment. It also ensures that there is uniformity when deciding on the company without biasness as well crucial to the achievement of the goals of the company (Ginter et al., 2018). The disadvantage of this approach is that it causes delays in the decision making because it is impractical. Also, the interdependence in the approach is not defined and may not apply to smaller organizations.

3. Explain how an understanding of an organization's strategic alternatives provides a structure for strategic thinking.

Strategic thinking involves a single person doing the thinking activity for the benefit of the organization. The purpose of this strategic thinking is the discovery strategies that are competitive and help it gain a competitive advantage in the market. It is characterized by the requirement to have an open-ended cognition and more intuition.

The structure of strategic thinking comprises of five main items that should be considered when constructing the model of strategic thinking. They include systems perspective, intently focused, thinking time, hypothesis-driven, and intelligent opportunism. Understanding the strategic alternatives of a company helps define the systems perspective. It helps to comprehend the influence of the different parts of the organization's systems on each other. It further enhances the focus on intent where the understanding the strategic alternatives helps convey the sense of direction driven by continuous shaping and reshaping of the plan. Intelligent opportunism as an aspect of strategic thinking allows one to take advantage of alternative strategies that may emerge in a rapidly changing environment. These elements are crucial to enabling the constituents of the organization to be open to transition as well as identification of those opportunities that are emerging in relation questioning the ongoing specif practice as well as pre-defined intention.

4. What will the health care industry be like five years from now? Will it be the same? Will we solve fundamental issues of access to health care for all?

Despite the innovation in the health care field having an increase in the past 70 years and advanced rapidly, there have been issues such as inconsistent levels of quality, the high cost of health care as well as the reduced patient experience. In the next five years, there will be a lot of changes in the health care sector. This changes might include new care delivery options: value-based payments models, big data opportunities, and an evolving workforce.

The healthcare will have new paradigms regarding new care delivery options which will make them more convenient, more affordable, and more responsive. Some of the ways through this can be achieved include provision of immediate answers to ensure that the patients have informed choices and go about their lives with less anxiety and disruption (Ferlie and Ongaro, 2018). With the new technologies, there can be remote monitoring that will make the engagement, communication, and care delivery to the patients.

An evolving workforce has led to a shift to more localized and personalized care, prevention and wellness, and approaching treatment more affordable. The growth in the usable date presents big data opportunities such as data infrastructure and data analytics. They will help identify past patterns in healthcare and opens windows to the future. Another factor is the value-based payment such as pay for meeting personal goals will help in the transition from value-based reimbursement of the future to the volume based compensation of the past.

5. Of the strategic issues facing health care organizations today, which ones are likely to receive attention? Which ones should receive attention?

The rapid evolution of technology and innovation has increased problems in healthcare despite their vast benefits. According to Ginter et al., (2018), few strategic problems face the health organization such as keeping pace in health care transformation to consumerism, shifting workforce demographics and rising physician burnout, navigating technology, Cybersecurity, and confidentiality, and focusing mission and lowering reimbursement.

The issue that will likely receive immediate attention is shifting workforce demographics and physician burnout. Despite the millennials representing the majority of the workforce in the world, healthcare organization does not show this representation. Similarly, physician burnout is a factor that crucial to the impairment of the morale of both the patient care and institution (Ginter et al., 2018). However, with the increase in technological advancement, the navigation of technology, Cybersecurity, and confidentiality should be given immediately. With the growth in demand for data in the world, it is essential that health care organizations protect the data and confidentiality of its patients.

6. Please share your reflections about strategic management and your future endeavors.

Strategic management is a vital aspect of businesses since it helps to choose the market it wants to serve and gives the way to get customers by gaining a competitive advantage. It helps in the focusing on the resources of the company and efforts that are aimed to achieve the objectives set and increase the competitive advantage. One crucial factor is that it considers all the aspects of the company on the analysis, as well as the external environment, competitors, five forces, and PESTLE analysis (Ferlie and Ongaro, 2018). In the future, I would like to focus on the study of specific strategies such as blue ocean strategy as a tool in the making of decisions.

References

Ferlie, E., & Ongaro, E. (2015). Strategic management in public services organizations: Concepts, schools, and contemporary issues. Routledge.

Ginter, P. M., Duncan, W. J., & Swayne, L. E. (2018). The strategic management of health care organizations. John Wiley & Sons.

Hill, C. W., Jones, G. R., & Schilling, M. A. (2014). Strategic management: theory: anintegrated approach. Cengage Learning.