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Strategic Management
Strategic Managment 

Strategic Management | Sample Assignment

Mathews

Introduction

The aim of this report is to develop a guidance document for the CEO of a healthcare organisation and demonstrating an understanding of the application of various concepts, techniques of strategic thinking, strategic planning and strategic momentum. The focus is examining their current strategic plan and suggesting improvements to the CEO of the firm. The guidance document will provide effective discussion to the CEO about how the strategic plan should be executed in an effective manner. The organisation is Seattle Children which is a healthcare firm for children based in Seattle. The organisation is engaged in ensuring that there should be nothing like ‘out of options’ for children. The mission of the organisation is to provide hope, care and appropriate treatment to every child who needs healthcare services. Seattle Children provides superior patient care, high-technology infrastructure, and effective treatments through paediatric research. The organisation’s centres are located in Washington, Montana, Idaho etc.

Seattle Children already has the best team of healthcare professionals who ensure that they provide the best care to the children (Seattle Children, 2021). The team at Seattle Children knows the child best due to which they work closely with the children and their parents. This enables them to develop personalised treatment plans for the children that can cater to their exclusive needs. The kids are not treated as patients rather as children only so that they can develop friendly bonds with their doctors. It is due to this that the organisation offers as many as 60 subspecialities. Seattle Children is recognised by the American College of Surgeons due to which the organisation is considered accredited to perform complex surgical procedures on children and even newborns. When needed, the doctors of Seattle Children collaborate with outside health practisers also for seeking advice for providing the best paediatric services.

As the healthcare needs of the children keep evolving and they can be difficult to manage in times so there is a need to develop proper strategic plans (Alomi, 2016). This strategic plan should work as a roadmap for the facility so that its future plans can be made clear. It is crucial for the organisation to ensure that the management, particularly CEO is aware of the changes needed in the firm and ensuring that these changes can provide best benefits. This can help in providing best care and enabling the institution to become one of the largest paediatric organisations in the world.

Implementing the Strategy

Directional Strategies (vision, mission and values)

The strategic plan of Seattle Children is a blueprint for the organisation to be successful. The plan helps in paving a path for achieving the aspirations of the management on behalf of children and families. The focus of the healthcare organisation is to transform the health of the children through four mission objectives and also different strategic plans. These objectives help in ensuring that the children can be given best healthcare services.

The vision, mission and values of the firm are as follows.

Mission

The organisation aims at providing hope, care and best treatment to each and every child in the US and eventually world so that they can live in a healthy and most fulfilling way.

Vision

The vision of the organisation is to become an innovative leader in the healthcare sector, especially paediatric health and wellness using the best clinical care and effective passion for keeping the children healthy. The promise of the firm to the community is to take care of the children and offer them best healthcare. The organisation promises to care for its children in its region and making healthcare affordable for the parents.

The organisation aims at practising secure, ethical and efficient medical care. It also aims at exploring new treatment options by consistently focussing on research and development. It helps in promoting healthy communities and decrease health problems of the children. Besides this, it also aims at empowering the team members of the organisation to use their maximum potential is explored and they are given respectful working environment (Demirdjian et al. 2017). The employees and staff of the organisation is given utmost respect so that they can cure the patients in a committed way. The focus is on education and inspiring the team of staff and leaders and develop a healthy culture of philanthropy in the firm.

Values

The values incorporated in the organisation include compassion, excellence, integrity, collaboration, innovation and diversity.

These values are explained as under.

  • Compassion: the management shows appropriate empathy for patients, their families and the employees for the firm and practicing family-centred care. Every child is crucial for the organisation and the focus is on providing best care (Seattle Children, 2021).
  • Excellent: The second value is excellence which is a promise to the parents and children to treat, prevent and provide best paediatric care. The healthcare organisation follows best quality and safety standards.
  • Integrity: The organisation’s focus is on integrity due to which the management ensures openness and transparency. The management focuses on using resources effectively so that these can be retained for the future generations.
  • Collaboration: A critical value for Seattle Children organisation is collaboration. The company works in partnership with various stakeholders including patients, their families, employees, volunteers and donors to ensure that quality of healthcare services is unmatchable.
  • Innovation: Another value is innovation as the focus of the Seattle Children is to be innovation leader in the field of paediatric healthcare industry. The organisation focuses on developing new and better strategies for providing best services in the industry.
  • Diversity: The organisation aims at embracing diversity for its workforce as well as for the staff members. The focus is on providing excellent care to the children.

All these values make Seattle Children one of the best healthcare organisations in the world for children.

Service/Product Strategies

The organisation is considered to have effective service/product strategies so that it can extend best healthcare services to the children and give them healthy life.

Seattle Children is a well-known paediatric medical and research centres in the world which aims at developing the image of the firm as a world-class destination centre. The focus of the institution is to grow the destination programs by offering best care and treatments for children (de Melo Menezes et al. 2020). Also, the organisation provides best experiences and developing system-wide capabilities for effective complex care.

The hospital has anti-racism, equity, diversity & inclusion policy, as per which, the organisation is committed to treat everyone equally irrespective of its caste, colour, race, creed etc. The focus of the management is on building a diverse and inclusive team so that patients can be given best care. This is achieved by implementing a policy of zero tolerance towards showing racist and discriminatory treatment (Ginter, Duncan& Swayne, 2018). Also, the focus is on developing clear anti-racist policies so that the management shows zero tolerance towards any violence and racism in the organisation.

Quality & Safety Strategy

All the services provided to the patients and their families are quality assured and controlled. Seattle Children’s is known for providing best quality to every child since years. The work of the healthcare institution creates an improved patient and family experience so that it can become one of the leading hospitals in the country in paediatric care. It also aims at developing a competent team so that they can provide best patient care. The focus is on developing excellent clinical excellence so that patients are key proof of the success (Vermeulen et al. 2020). The commitment of the hospital is to provide zero harm to the patients including physical, emotional and psychological harm. To continuously focus on improving quality, they share knowledge and learning. The organisation’s key focus is to improve quality and ensure best patient care.

Mental & Behavioural Health

Mental health crisis among children is common due to which Seattle Children’s consistently works on responding to this problem. There should be a provision of early intervention, better access and outcomes by making healthcare accessible to each and every one who needs it (Linhares et al. 2014). It also includes expanding outpatient services so that mental health of the children is never ignored.

Exceptional Services to Children

Seattle Children is developed with a prime aim of providing best paediatric care in the nation. As children react to illness, injury and other harms differently so there is a need to provide exceptional services to them. The staff should continuously examine how treatments should be used to treat the growing bodies in future and also meeting the needs of the young people. The care should be revised from time to time so that children should be given right treatment, avoid any diagnostic test and surgery. Radiation doses at Seattle Children should be given only when needed in extreme cases. There should not be harsh treatment for the children even when dealing with complicated illnesses (Maloney, 2012). The focus should be on providing a range of resources to provide best care. For prenatal diagnosis and treatment, special facilities and provisions have to be developed so that mother and foetus can be healthy from the start of the pregnancy.

These are some of the product/service strategies of the organisation to ensure that the institution is a leader in healthcare. The management needs to review the product/services strategies from time to time so that proper care can be provide to the children and Seattle Children can become one of the best institutions in the world and not just in the US.

Support Strategies

There is a need to develop certain support strategies to measure success and possible challenges in measuring these. The support strategies are recommendations for ensuring that the challenges in the paediatric care can be managed and Seattle Children can grow effectively.

  • Clinical training: There is a need to update the knowledge of staff members from time to time. This should include clinical training for them. However, clinical training should be combined with value-based health care. This can help in defining and measuring outcomes to bridge the disciplinary divide so that teams can collaborate effectively and there can be better results (Vermeulen et al. 2020). Data of the hospital should be analysed thoroughly so that any poor performance can be used as a motivator to improve.
  • SMART goals: the healthcare institution should focus on developing explicit goals. The management needs to focus on quality, research and education as key goals but should also measure the treatment outcomes to the public and staff. The focus of the teams should be aligned with effective market strategy to achieve excellent outcomes (White& Blaiser, 2011). The goals of the organisation should be developed from time to time based on the needs of the institution and also the stakeholders.
  • Compassionate care: There is a need to focus on providing compassionate care as much as possible. Although Seattle Children has been doing it for last 100 years and fulfilled the exclusive physical, emotional and development requirements. The hospital in future can collaborate with other paediatric institutions to provide other subspecialities services. Besides this, the hospital can encourage the donors to come forward and donate as much as possible for the lives of children by creating awareness.
  • Research: Seattle Children’s needs to conduct breakthrough research in the field of paediatric care to cure childhood diseases and also improve the health of children across the world. The support of donors is crucial for the organisation so that there can be appropriate care provided to the children (Tamburro, Jenkins & Kochanek, 2016). The support of donors ultimately helps in raising funds for creating better future for the patients.
  • Leadership: the leadership at Seattle Children should improve and must focus on motivating the staff as much as possible so that they can be dedicated and committed to providing the best care. For Seattle Children to become one of the largest paediatric organisations in the world, there is a need to have effective leadership and motivated teams in the firm. the leaders must focus on having transformational leadership so that the teams can provide best support to their teams when need be.

 

These are certain support strategies that can help in ensuring that the hospital is able to deal with the challenges in the field and focus on providing best care.

Reflecting and Revisiting the Strategy

There is a need to align the strategies with the external environment for gaining sustainable competitive advantage. This can help in understanding the scope for developing future strategies. There will be a need to develop new strategies from time to time such that the hospital can cope with the challenges. The strategies discussed in this guidance document will help you gain competitive edge and ensure that everything is managed well. These have been recommended after careful examination of the current strategic plan and the future needs of the firm. In paediatric care, there can be revision of strategies needed in certain cases. Some of these can be explained here. When a child seems distracted by the treatment provided to him, it is an indication that there is a need to take a different approach and decrease the anxiety of the child. It can mean that the doctors will need to take an alternative approach to treat the child and develop a friendly bonding with him. Besides this, if the parents of the child give negative reviews so there will be a need to review the treatment so that the parents can be satisfied. In case, children visit Seattle Children’s facility with a fear and anxiety of drugs, harsh treatments and injections, it should be the duty of the team to make them comfortable. There can be different strategies adopted including offering a topical anaesthesia, educating the children, developing friendly bonds with them and providing them time to cope with the situation. The strategies to be taken in such instances should be developed beforehand and must be informed to the team during clinical training. Overall, the focus of the team members should be on patient satisfaction and providing them to provide best care. This discussion can help the management know when and how to develop strategies and do not feel demotivated when they are unable to provide the patient satisfaction they should give.

Conclusion

It can be concluded from this guidance document that there are certain areas that the management needs to focus and develop new strategies based on them. This guidance document has provided effective strategies that can be taken for coping with the challenges in the paediatric care and improve strategic planning of the healthcare institution. The focus of the management should be on providing compassionate care and dealing with the children in most sensitive way so that the children can be treated well. In case, there is a need for developing new strategies so research and development should be consistently done in the organisation. This can help in ensuring that the organisation is managing its patients well and providing best patient care. Overall, the focus of the staff and management has to be on patient satisfaction and ensuring that they provide positive reviews for the treatments and cure received in the healthcare facility.

Annexure

The strategic plan of the organisation is as follows.

https://www.seattlechildrens.org/about/strategic-plan/

References

Alomi, YA. 2016. Primary care center pharmacy manpower new guidelines in Saudi Arabia. J Pharmacol Clin Res, 1(1), 1-3.

Demirdjian, G., Rodríguez, S., Vassallo, JC., Irazola, V., & Rodríguez, J. 2017. In-hospital capacity-building in research and management for pediatric professionals. Arch Argent Pediat, 115(1), 58-64.

de Melo Menezes, B., Lazaretto, FZ., Lima, L. H., Schwambach, KH., & Blatt, CR. 2020. Economic impact of the clinical pharmacist interventions in the pediatric intensive care unit. Revista de Ciências Farmacêuticas Básica e Aplicada, 41, 1-8.

Ginter, PM., Duncan, WJ., & Swayne, LE. 2018. The strategic management of health care organizations. John Wiley & Sons.

Linhares, MBM., Oliveira, NC., Doca, FN., Martinez, FE., Carlotti, A. PP., & Finley, GA. 2014. Assessment and management of pediatric pain based on the opinions of health professionals. Psychology & Neuroscience, 7(1), 43-53.

Maloney, C. G. 2012. The Strategic Planning Committee Report: The First Step in a Journey to Recognize Pediatric Hospital Medicine as a Distinct.

Seattle Children., 2021. Strategic Plan. https://www.seattlechildrens.org/about/strategic-plan/. Accessed on 26/7/2021.

Seattle Children. 2021. About Us. https://www.seattlechildrens.org/about/ . Accessed on 26/7/2021.

Tamburro, RF., Jenkins, TL., & Kochanek, PM. 2016. Strategic planning for research in pediatric critical care. Pediatric critical care medicine: a journal of the Society of Critical Care Medicine and the World Federation of Pediatric Intensive and Critical Care Societies, 17(11), e539.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5125531/

White, KR., & Blaiser, KM. 2011. Strategic planning to improve EHDI programs. Volta Review, 111(2), 83.

Vermeulen, LC., Swarthout, MD., Alexander, GC., Ginsburg, DB., Pritchett, KO., White, SJ., … & Zellmer, WA. 2020. ASHP Foundation pharmacy forecast 2020: strategic planning advice for pharmacy departments in hospitals and health systems. American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy, 77(2), 84-112.