Executive Summary and Recommendations
Planning is one important factor that should be adhered to in every organization. A strategic plan should not be compared to the normal vision or mission statements. It is supposed to provide a structure for decision making in a competitive and dynamic environment.
In the current century, there have been rapid changes in the technological field. This has resulted into the need for updates in the structure of various organizations. Health organizations should have strategic tools for planning. These plans for the field of health are to be developed in local, regional and national level.
John Hopkins Hospital is one of the renowned hospitals that is claimed to be providing the best services in the health care and service sector. The main theme or plan for all their operations has been geared towards risk prevention.
This plan has been achieved by creation of a culture for safety. This safety culture covers patients, the public and the service providers who are the clinicians and doctors. Other major significant strategic issues are the adherence to information management systems and provision of quality care.
Recommendations
The recommendations are as indicated below;
Hospitals should be institutions that give people an interface for recovery. For this reason, there should be a laid up strategy for monitoring patients improvement even if it means following up with the patients.
The hospitals should offer preventive visits. In addition, they should advocate for more health insurance coverage and public health programmes together with staff capacity building programmes.
Lastly, there should be a medium for providing increased awareness on disease, on contraction of the disease, preventive measures and awareness on good nutrition practices. These recommendations could have been in the plans of the hospital but the achievements are the most appropriate step in attaining success in the health sector.
Internal Assessment
This can be achieved by conducting a drill or just going through the management practices of the hospitals, also, one could have a look at the achievements. An internal assessment is good because it provides a basis for the functionality of an institution.
Following John Hopkins Hospital, this has been attained by assessing the following;
- Innovation
- Customers’ satisfaction
- Safety and health
- Productivity
Innovation here refers to the access of technological resources. It should also involve the number of staff can utiliz the current technology during operation. In addition, innovation should also apply to customer training from time to time due to the dynamic effects of change in the health care system.
Customer satisfaction is very important and this is rated as highly important at John Hopkins. Factors that are considered are such as readmission of patients, the waiting time intervals, patient’s case cancellations, the length of stay by patients in the hospital, provision of complaints by patients on a week basis, emergency preparedness for example, a patient is triaged within the first fifteen minutes of arrival and the rate of discharge of patients by the hospital.
Productivity has also been adhered to towards the positive end. That is in terms of bed occupancy, the cost per produce, the ratio of resource utilization, the duration of activity or hour’s unit of activity and lastly the employee performance against contract.
Another internal factor is on the issue of health and safety. This is one significant point of success for John Hopkins as they have developed a form of safety culture for guidance. This is applied for both customers and the clinicians. This strategy is oriented to people and it involves various aspects.
First, it is believed that harm is untenable and there should be ways to prevent it or see unto ways of working it out. Another factor is good listening capabilities. At times it is important to listen to the concern of colleague’s and even clients to be able to understand them.
In addition, everyone has the obligation to belong to a team and apply system approach in the health center to work out safety issues. These would prevent the issues of hazards that are uncalled for.
Quality measures are related to customer services and even provision of benefits to workers. At John Hopkins, this has been carefully looked into starting with customer satisfaction services. The patients are provided with good and quality health care services.
Customer satisfaction is significant because it will always attract other customers hence increase the revenue of the hospital or institution. This has been one of the strong points of John Hopkins hospital. Their ability to give a satisfying approach to their services has acted as a stepping stone to their fame. The hospital have been mentioned to be the best health service providers worldwide.
In addition, provision of quality healthcare has also been a result of effective management that is goal oriented. Having quality services means owning the best kind of technology in the world. It is only through innovation that success has become attainable.
The use of sophisticated machines results to extensive analysis and research in the health sector. In the current world, reliable research work and health systems have been accorded to institutions that have the most current technology. This has acted as a stepping stone for John Hopkins in achieving their strategic goals set.
Growth on the other hand cannot be explained in better words but by the use of advancement. The advancement in quality services have led to the increase in customers in the hospital. Consequently, the clients have brought about expansion which eventually has led to the growth of the hospital at large.
The cost of health services has been considerate for the purposes of reaching out in the community. Having high cost health services could result from use of highly sophisticated equipments, but this is not the case at John Hopkins because to be able to reach out for people with great health needs, it meant that the cost had to be made favorable.
This plan to provide affordable services was also a plan to help the institution reach out for the goals outlined in the strategic plan.
External Environment
The external environment is more of a business initiative. The John Hopkins Hospital had just suffered low patient turn up in the hospital in a period of two years. This was a form of threat to the institutions. This is because their sources of clientele were the patients.
This is not to say that they wanted more people to fall ill, but it was a loss to the institution. The low turnout of patients was caused by poor management. In the event of reviving the institution’s fame, the managing director then sought to check on what could act as an opportunity for business in the hospital. This initiative was called the business continuity initiative.
Its main aim was to start patient admission and intake procedures. This was to help the administration and other departments to live in an environment that is prepared health wise. Some of the initiatives included; achieving recovery of objectives by preventing interruptive healthcare, education on medical care, customer service and research.
A form of opportunity was on training the clinicians on knowledge of how they can respond to mass casualty incidences. This involves disaster management and prevention.
This would give the hospital an upper hand in being accredited with universal standardization marks. This had also been covered in the event of readiness.
These external factors can be adhered to when follow up is done. Patients follow up would require commitment whether there is a large number of patients or just few of them. In addition, improving on disaster management and customer service would be helpful when the staff is fully armed with capacity building strategies and training is also important.
Lastly, helping patients to acquire health insurance coverage would be a commendable step. This is mainly for those patients with manageable diseases and all other patients who could find it hard to raise fee for medication once.
Strategic Objective
To provide Safety to Patients
This strategy is significant to the hospital. It should take place for a period of about three to five years. The main responsibilities involved include; creating a safe environment for communication so as to attend to the concerns of the patient, focusing on team work, engaging families and friends on safety care process and plan for the resources that would be used in ensuring that safety measures are adhered to.
In addition, there is a good possibility to reduce complexities in safety matters and ensure that all stakeholders involved such as family, clinician, and the community work hand in hand to form a team.
Team work is great because it engages an individual to the feel of the social aspect which is very important to an individual who is or has recuperated. This strategy on safety is significant because a clinician is able to monitor a patient’s journey to good and great health.
It is more satisfying to see the effort placed in such an amazing way which can be very rewarding when adhered to and followed properly with discipline.
To do Review on Diseases that are communicable in Public Health
Communicable diseases are one of the most interesting diseases. They are quite challenging because they are community based. The review is to involve working in the grass roots level to identify factors that predispose people to such diseases.
The review is to account for the following; planning a control programme that will ensure settings organized for emergency. Another plan is on how to control the spread and contraction of such diseases. This would be through awareness campaigns in the streets and every place where there are residential homes and suburbs.
The awareness campaign is also to include ways of managing such a disease once a person has contracted it. As long as the disease is not deadly, it can be managed by the members of the community themselves.
The timing of these procedures should be on short term basis. This is because such diseases also take a short while to spread. Therefore, using the best gadgets, it is possible to put up preventive measures and also to be able to manage the disease as long as there is constant cooperation.
A solution should also be given out after monitoring and evaluating the communicable disease. The evaluation plans should discuss the clinical features, the risk factors and management of the diseases.
Important also is the review of the possibility of the resurgence of communicable diseases that could have caused havoc in the past. This approach merged with operational planning could help manage and prevent the spread of the diseases and even alleviate them from the face of the earth.
To practice continual staff Training Practices
This is rather expensive in relation to the latest forms of change. Of late, the technological advancement has been taking place at a much rapid state. This calls for rapid measures that would ensure that no institution is left behind. Training is to be done on a frequent basis.
This includes new employees training. For instance, fresh graduates who are always absorbed in many institutions need prior experience. As they are being trained, the older employees should also be able to get review of the newest components in the market.
Good communication capabilities would ensure good transfer of knowledge and skill. John Hopkins hospital has this lined up. Having flow of residents from time to time has provided the basis for the strategic goal, but there is a need to fully incorporate other old employees in the practice.
All these objectives could take a while but the fact that they have been implemented is commendable.
Conclusion
Committed and goal oriented individuals are able to accomplish these objectives. Success only requires a change of mind towards the positive.
John Hopkins having a vast encounter with great health achievements can in no way fail to achieve the objectives if focus when favorable health policies are put in place. Therefore, with dedication towards a positive and visionary future, anything is achievable.