General Analysis of Corporate Strategy
In any organizational environment, a corporate strategy is its indispensable element, without which the functioning of a company is impossible. However, the extent of its efficacy may vary depending on the feasibility of set objectives and the efficacy of the tools used to attain them. Having established itself reasonably well in the healthcare setting as a nonprofit organization, Atrium Health has been supporting hospitals, emergency facilities, and other healthcare organizations across the U.S. quite successfully (“About us,” 2019). By making its vision compatible with its potential, the availability of resources, and its vision, Atrium Health has become one of the most influential centers offering support to healthcare organizations statewide.
The corporate strategy that Atrium Health has been using can be described as the objective setting. The company clearly has a vision, which is “to improve health, elevate hope, and advance healing for all” (Atrium Health, 2019, para. 1).
However, the company implements the specified vision from the perspective of stability, which defines its nature and the type of corporate strategy that the organization adopts. The stability perspective can be considered as the essential corporate strategy used by the organization. Aimed at maintaining the levels of the corporate growth at the needed level, the specified tool serves the purpose of absorbing shock in which any undesirable change to the company results. Consequently, Atrium Health has been focusing on pursuing stability to avoid the challenges that any deviations from the median result.
The described tool has made it possible for Atrium Health to maintain contact with each of its customers and make sure that patients’ needs are met in a fashion as effective and fast as possible. Moreover, the corporate strategy in question has provided the fuel for the future growth of the company (Engert, Rauter, & Baumgartner, 2016). By using strategic management, the leaders of Atrium Health have managed to align the company’s goals with its performance, decision-making, and execution of any strategy implemented at the organization.
Therefore, the rationale that the managers at Atrium Health use to guide staff members and align their actions with the corporate goals as a part of the grand scheme of the company’s functioning is to provide the best quality of care possible. Arguably, the company would have benefited from the introduction of the principles that would have set it on the path to continuous and unending professional growth. The described choice implies introducing Human Resource Management (HRM) techniques that incorporate the principles of Talent Management and similar approaches for encouraging self-directed learning (Collings, Mellahi, & Cascio, 2019).
Thus, Atrium Health would have helped to advance healthcare services to an even greater extent. The launch of the nurse education campaign that Atrium Health could start might lead to tremendous improvements in the current health management system, causing a more effective patient-nurse interaction and an improved information management process within healthcare settings. However, the specified change would entail a large shift in how Atrium Health communicates its message to its customers.
Formulation of Corporate Strategy
As stressed above, the current corporate strategy used at Atrium Health is quite legitimate, yet it would benefit from the elements such as a more effective talent management technique and the promotion of nurse education. Therefore, the corporate strategy to which Atrium Health should actually lean is the growth strategy. The incorporation of the vertical integration techniques will help Atrium health to gain more traction in the healthcare industry and create stronger ties with other companies. Moreover, the application of the vertical integration techniques will help Atrium Health to exert significantly more substantial control over the processes within its environment. The described change has become especially important given the recent propensity toward growth and further expansion that Atrium Health has shown (“Mission and vision,” 2019).
For the company to remain popular, it needs to develop new business connections and gain opportunities for allocating resources more effectively (Bianchi, Mingo, & Fernandez, 2019). Therefore, the use of the vertical integration technique as the corporate strategy would help Atrium Health to communicate with its key partners more successfully. For instance, the relationships within the supply chain of Atrium Health will improve significantly as the notion of vertical integration is established within its corporate environment.
Therefore, the suggested corporate strategy includes developing more intricate connections between Atrium Health and its partners across the company’s supply chain. Along with the principles of vertical integration, Atrium Health may need to incorporate the elements of diversification as the method of expanding its services and offering a greater range of resources and services to the health organizations that need active support. The diversification process may focus specifically on the digital aspect of managing health concerns since the digital environment of healthcare remains one of the areas that are yet to be explored more profoundly (Sun, Peng, & Tan, 2017).
At present, the development of applications that would help to provide the necessary health services to patients master and more effectively can be seen as an example of the way in which Atrium health may need to develop. Tools for encouraging interdisciplinary cooperation will also constitute a significant part of the new approach toward managing the relationships on the corporate level. Specifically, the issue of conflict management in the healthcare setting will need to be addressed (Higazee, 2015).
The problems such as the lack of agreement between nurses and physicians regarding the hospital hierarchy and the ensuring challenges in making the decisions concerning the management of patients needs have to be removed from the healthcare context once and for all. Atrium Health, in turn, may foster the development of the organizational environment that will prompt better professional relationships between experts and collaboration on an interdisciplinary level.
The engagement of social media should also be deemed as the corporate strategy that has to be integrated into the range of techniques used by Atrium Health. The company will require the proposed tool in order to engage target audiences, including patients, healthy population members, and healthcare workers, into the process of unending education (O’Connor & Andrews, 2015). Patients need to receive information about the management of their health issues and be provided with regular updates concerning innovative methods of managing their issues. Herein lies the business logic behind the strategy in question. By encouraging the target population to gain knowledge, the company will engage them in continuous conversation.
Implementation of Corporate Strategy
The process of putting the outlined objectives into practice may require an extra effort due to the rise in resistance among staff members. Therefore, the introduction of the new principles of operations on the corporate level, Atrium health will require the
Currently, the actions of Atrium Health are in full agreement with its corporate philosophy, values, and mission. Moreover, the recent decisions made by the company align with the corporate strategy based on the concept of expanding and promoting the principles of lifelong improvement both to its staff members and customers. For example, the decision that Atrium Health labeled as the “strategic combination” and that represented partnership with another healthcare company has shown the organization’s willingness to delve deeper into the healthcare industry and spread its influence across it (Hudson, 2019, para. 2). According to Atrium Health’s leader,
The team at Floyd is known for their deep commitment to clinical excellence, for their relentless focus to continuously improve, and most importantly, for keeping their mission at the heart of everything they do. I know our shared future is limitless, and we can’t wait to formally welcome them to our family. (Hudson, 2019, para. 3)
Therefore, Atrium Health shows the willingness to implement its decision to embrace a wider range of customers and extend its influence to support a greater range of patients by seeking partnerships with other organizations. The decision to collaborate with Floyd has shown that Atrium Health is completely serious about the idea of expanding, which calls for the incorporation of the vertical integration approach mentioned above along with reconfiguring of the company’s current values toward the promotion of patient and nurse education, as well as unceasing improvement.
The described strategy is expected to play a vital role in the enhancement of Atrium Health’s performance due to the increase in the rapport that it will have with its partners across the supply chain and the communication between the organization and its end customers (Eslamian, Moeini, & Soleimani, 2015). Moreover, the progress that the company will achieve by increasing the levels of health competence in patients will lead to better treatment outcomes.
Conclusions and Recommendations
So far, Atrium health has been showing quite impressive signs of professional development, as the company has been offering substantial and meaningful support to individual communities, as well as healthcare organizations, in addressing health concerns. However, the existing framework of supporting people with health issues may become even more effective once several innovative techniques are added to it. The shift toward vertical integration as the means of improving Atrium Health Supply Chain Management and reinforcing its communication with its partners should be deemed as a crucial change. In addition, the redesign of the company’s values toward the focus on continuous health education and the promotion of health literacy among all members of the community should be acknowledged as the top priority.
Overall, the company will require a change in the range of the tools that it has been using in promoting health awareness and encouraging education among community members and nurses alike. The change in the corporate strategy and the scope of Atrium Health’s performance will alter the organization’s influence on the realm of healthcare, in general. The proposed techniques that atrium Health will need to develop may spur cross-disciplinary collaboration across healthcare organizations within the community, as well as the global healthcare setting, in general.
Moreover, the focus on unceasing education and professional development should be pursued by Atrium Health and its members to set the example of professional growth within the healthcare and nursing environments. Due to the rapid changes in the modern healthcare setting, as well as the creation of disruptive technologies that have the potential of changing the entire landscape of the modern healthcare industry, acquiring new knowledge is not only crucial but, for the most part, almost inevitable. Therefore, as the leader in healthcare promotion, Atrium Health should encourage nurses and patients alike to accept the idea of constant learning and the development of new skills to manage health effectively.
To implement the changes described above, it is recommended to introduce a corporate strategy that will encourage active data sharing and information management. The use of the concept of vertical integration will help to transfer crucial pieces of data from one participant of the knowledge exchange to another within the company’s supply chain, which is essential for educating the organizations that collaborate with Atrium Health.
However, apart from focusing on the education of its partners, Atrium Health should also pursue the enhancement of health literacy rates among its customers, namely, the local population. Therefore, it is strongly suggested that Atrium Health should focus on creating communication channels that will help it to advocate for patient education and the improvement in nurses’ competencies and skills. Setting the example and introducing the philosophy of the continuous, unending change in its organizational context by deploying the tools such as Lewin’s Change Model or Kotter’s Eight Steps should be seen as the gateway to making a difference in the modern healthcare context.
Finally, the promotion of an environment devoid of conflict and with the focus on interdisciplinary collaboration and effective management of emerging disagreements should remain one of the major priorities in Atrium Health’s development. Once the principles outlined above are established, the organization will gain the power to shape the existing standards of care and ensure that the needs of patients remain the top priority of healthcare organizations.
References
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