Assignment: Environmental analysis of a health care
Assignment: Environmental analysis of a health care
Prepare a 5–7-page environmental analysis of a health care organization addressing both the external and internal environments.
Note: Each assessment in this course builds upon the work you have completed in previous assessments. Therefore, you must complete the assessments in the order in which they are presented.
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Health care organizations have embraced strategic management and developed unique processes for their industry. Health care leaders have found that strategic thinking, planning, and managing strategic momentum are essential for coping with the health care industry’s dynamics. Strategic management has become the single clearest demonstration of effective leadership in health care organizations.
Health care organization leaders need to understand the external environment in which they operate and anticipate and respond to the significant shifts taking place within that environment. An organization engages in service area competitor analysis to:
•Determine the geographic service area.
•Analyze the competitors within that service area for strengths and vulnerabilities.
•Assess the impact of its strategic actions against specific competitors.
•Anticipate potential actions a competitor might take that would endanger the organization’s market position.
Analyzing competitors assists organizations in identifying their competitive advantage—the basis on which they are willing to compete. Evaluating the organization’s internal environment is also critical. This requires evaluating such functional areas as clinical operations, information systems, marketing, clinical support, human resources, financial administration, and so on. In an internal environmental analysis, leaders carefully examine each function or organizational subsystem and then develop and analyze a list of strengths and weaknesses for each. This approach has been successful in some cases; however, an internal environmental analysis alone does not adequately address strategic issues.
This assessment provides an opportunity for you to perform an environmental analysis of a health care organization. An environmental analysis enables the organization to identify current challenges and opportunities in preparation for future strategic planning and goal identification. Insightful diagnosis of a company’s external and internal environments is a prerequisite for managers to succeed in crafting a strategy that is an excellent fit within the company’s operations. These evaluations assist the organization in fostering alternative strategies and business models that culminate in leaders choosing a specific strategy.
By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and assessment criteria:
•Competency 1: Analyze organizational structure, design, culture, and climate in relation to environmental forces. ◦Identify key industry structural features determining the forces governing competition.
•Competency 3: Recommend an organizational structure and design to optimize a strategic plan. ◦Evaluate a health care organization’s directional strategy, as reflected in its vision, mission, and values.
•Competency 4: Communicate in a manner that is scholarly, professional, and consistent with expectations for professionals in health care administration. ◦Write a clear, concise, well-organized, professional, and generally error-free environmental analysis that supports conclusions with relevant evidence.
◦Follow current APA formatting and style guidelines for citations and references
Suggested Resources
The resources provided here are optional. You may use other resources of your choice to prepare for this assessment; however, you will need to ensure that they are appropriate, credible, and valid. The MHA-FP5010 Strategic Health Care Planning Library Guide can help direct your research, and the Supplemental Resources and Research Resources, both linked from the left navigation menu in your courseroom, provide additional resources to help support you.
Strategic Planning
The following resources provide an overview of the current state of strategic planning in health care organizations.
•Ginter, P. M., Duncan, W. J., & Swayne, L. E. (2018). Strategic management of health care organizations (8th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. ◦Chapter 1, “The Nature of Strategic Management,” pages 1–36.
◦Resource 1, “Analyzing Strategic Health Care Cases,” pages 431–442. ◦This appendix provides a macro-level overview of case analysis, which can be utilized as a resource for the course assessments.
•Baum, N., Brockmann, E. N, & Lacho, K. J. (2016). Strategic planning: A practical primer for the healthcare provider: Part I. The Journal of Medical Practice Management, 31(6), 371–373.
•Baum, N., Brockmann, E. N, & Lacho, K. J. (2016). Strategic planning: A practical primer for the healthcare provider: Part II. The Journal of Medical Practice Management, 32(1), 51–53.
•Martin, R. L. (2014). The big lie of strategic planning. Harvard Business Review, 92(1/2), 78–84.
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Environmental Culture and Analysis
The following resources describe the process of analyzing an organization’s external and internal environment.
•Ginter, P. M., Duncan, W. J., & Swayne, L. E. (2018). Strategic management of health care organizations (8th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. ◦Chapter 2, “External Analysis,” pages 37–78.
◦Chapter 3, “Service Area Competitor Analysis,” pages 79–120.
◦Chapter 4, “Internal Analysis and Competitive Advantage,” pages 121–162.
•Mairs-Levy, J. (2017). Diversity and cultural competence in health care settings: The merits of unbiased multicultural observation in clinical and research context. Biofeedback, 45(3), 50–51.
•Retail Stores and Key Success Factors. ◦In this interactive exercise, you will complete a strategic map for a chain of retail stores based on price, quality, and number of locations. Then, you will examine one of the store’s key success factors, such as market position, financial risk, et cetera.
•The External Environment of a Health Care Organization. ◦This illustration depicts the three major aspects of the external environment health care organizations must consider when conducting an environmental analysis. These include the general environment, the health care environment, and the service area.
•The Value Chain. ◦This media piece visually presents the value chain for a health care organization. The value chain provides a framework for assessing an organization’s internal environment. You will be able to click on the various value adding components to learn more about each.
Assignment: Environmental analysis of a health care
Balanced Scorecard
The following resources address the role of the balanced scorecard in strategic planning.
•Behrouzi, F., Shaharoun, A. M., & Ma’aram, A. (2014). Applications of the balanced scorecard for strategic management and performance measurement in the health sector. Australian Health Review, 38(2), 208–217.
•Hansen, E. G., & Schaltegger, S. (2016). The sustainability balanced scorecard: A systematic review of architectures. Journal of Business Ethics, 133(2), 193–221.
•Meena, K., & Thakkar, J. (2014). Development of balanced scorecard for healthcare using Interpretive Structural Modeling and Analytic Network Process. , 11(3), 232–256.
