Strategic Audit Project: The Strategic Audit - Case Study Example

Strategic Audit Project: The Strategic Audit Executive Summary The report critically reviews various significant aspects of the healthcare organization namely Aurora Health Care. The prime intent of this report is to provide an accurate and existing representation of Aurora Health Care through several sources, methods and models. It has been apparently observed that Aurora Health Care provides broad assortment of healthcare services to the people. On the basis of the interview conducted with an optometrist of a unit in Aurora Health Care, it is quite clear that the healthcare professionals have diverse roles to play in order to provide quality services to the individuals. The external environment of Aurora Health Care is noted to be characterized by several challenges. To cite such challenges, the most crucial ones included maintenance of balance between healthcare cost and quality, technological advancement and shortage of employees among others. The report also analyzes the internal environment of Aurora Health Care with the use of SWOT model. Introduction A strategic audit report is a particular study, which depicts about each and every operational aspect of any particular business. Contextually, this particular report is intended towards presenting an audit report for the operations of the healthcare unit i.e. Aurora Health Care. Notably, the organization has been one of the leaders in the health care sector owing to the scale and level at which it operates. In order to possess a better understanding about how the organization operates, an interview has been conducted with one of the medical professionals of the organization. Moving forward, the report will also work towards analyzing the internal as well as the external environment of the healthcare organization in a more comprehensive manner with the help of secondary data obtained from reliable sources. A Brief Description of Aurora Health Care Aurora Health Care is regarded as an integrated healthcare service provider. It provides inclusive selection of healthcare services ranging from primary care to home care. The healthcare organization possesses the best doctors who provide exclusive care to the patients, making them to lead a healthier life. In accordance with the interview conducted with an optometrist in one of the healthcare units of Aurora Health Care, it has been ascertained that the medical practitioners or the doctors have diverse roles to play. These roles can be categorized into three types namely general roles, operational roles and managerial roles. In this regard, the general roles are the key roles that are inherent in the job responsibilities of an optometrist such as evaluation of eyesight and recommendation of spectacles among others. On the other hand, operational roles comprise collaboration with other healthcare employees as well as performing certain typical activities like communicating with patients, identifying injuries, evaluating symptoms and diagnosing any illness. Finally, the managerial roles encompass administrating nurses along with various clerical employees, offering training to junior assistants, managing the sales of various products like spectacles as well as lenses and maintaining relationship with medical sales representatives. (Aurora Health Care. (2014). Strategic Audit Project In order to possess a better comprehension about the core operational approach of Aurora Health Care and conduct an effective strategic project with more efficacy, an interview has been conducted with the optometrist of one of its healthcare units i.e. Dr. Julie M Henry. From the interview, it has been ascertained that the healthcare organization is involved in a large-scale operation and possesses several campuses within which varied operational functions are conducted. Dr. Henry stated that she is currently associated with Aurora Health Care and her job role includes evaluation, assessment and treatment particularly of the eye patients. She also affirmed about the collaborative nature of working within the workplace of Aurora Health Care. According to the interview conducted with Dr. Henry, it was clearly understood that the job roles of the professionals in the healthcare unit are not limited to any particular set of works to be conducted rather they need to provide their services wherever there lays a requirement. This particular aspect can be determined from the fact that despite of being employed as a specific professional in Aurora Health Care, she needs to perform certain managerial tasks depending on varied situations. These aspects further provide an overview about the working culture of the healthcare unit. External Analysis of Aurora Health Care The present healthcare industry is characterized by several challenges that affected the overall performance of Aurora Health Care at large. A few of these challenges have been elaborated in the following. Maintenance of balance between cost and quality: One of the most crucial challenges of Aurora Health Care is observed to be maintenance of balance between accessibility of healthcare services, cost of healthcare services and quality. With the increasing demand of consumers, it has become quite challenging for Aurora Health Care to adjust all these three components concurrently (Sultz & Young, 2010). Legislative requirements: The legislative requirements imposed by the respective government also generated challenges for Aurora Health Care, resulting in affecting their performance at large. Specially mentioning, the legislations or the lawful regulations necessitate Aurora Health Care to maintain proper disclosure of information, appropriate database management and effectual system of managing patients’ medical records (Crosbie, 2007). Technological development: The constant development of medical technologies also generated challenges for Aurora Health Care in keeping up the pace with the changing patients’ requirements. It can be affirmed that improvements in technology certainly impose financial burden on Aurora Health Care and thus generate pressure on maintaining its cost effectiveness along with affordability of the healthcare services (Sultz & Young, 2010). Shortage of employees: The shortage of employees is the other challenge for Aurora Health care in the upcoming days. The increased extent of ageing population signifies that substantial number of elder populaces in the US would require quality healthcare services, which in turn necessitates the engagement of more staff members (Sultz & Young, 2010). Internal Analysis of Aurora Health Care/ Aurora Vision Center Internal operations and their respective effectiveness are amid the major decisive factors that work towards determining the performance efficacy of healthcare organizations. This particular scenario is also relevant with the operations perform by Aurora Health Care. Notably, analysis suggests that the healthcare organization is currently operating with a functional structure including the conduct of specific activities like strategic business affairs, operation management and human resource management among others. As per this particular operational structure, the human resource professionals of the organization work in a collaborative pattern wherein they perform their respective job roles sharing diverse range of tasks (Aurora Health Care, 2014). It is evident that Aurora Health Care operates in a larger scale and possesses numerous key stakeholders that impose considerable impact on the operations of its business one way or the other. A few of the noteworthy stakeholders of the healthcare organization are categorized as external as well as internal stakeholders. The internal stakeholders include the employees, top-level management officials and the medical officials, while the external stakeholders encompass the patients or the customers, suppliers and the competitors to name a few. Subsequently, the stakeholders are also segregated as primary and secondary based on the level of impact they impose on the organization. In this regard, the primary stakeholders are the one who gets influenced from the healthcare services provided by the unit like the patients, medical staff members and the competitors. Conversely, the secondary stakeholders include the government, suppliers and the pharmaceuticals as they directly gets benefited from the operations of the organization (Aurora Health Care, 2014). The products and/or the services of Aurora Health care are also amid the prominent parts of its internal operations. Analysis suggests that the organization deals with varied products like healthcare, pharmacy and skin care. Notably, the organization intends to ensure deliverance of highest quality products and/or services so that it can contribute positively towards preserving the health as well as the wellbeing of the customers i.e. the patients. Apart from the products and/or services, the healthcare unit is also well known for delivering efficient services to the patients. In this regard, a few of the notable services of the organization include diagnosis as well as treatment of various diseases and injuries, eye check-ups and laser operations among others. The efficiency of the services provide by the organization has been the cornerstone for the success and the sustainable existence of the company over several years (Aurora Health Care, 2014). Change and Change Drivers in Aurora Health Care Notably, it is a universal fact that change is one of the most constant activities of organizations, which aids them to sustain in this challenging business environment. This aspect is also evident in the operational approach of Aurora Health Care as the organization is integrally associated with initiating changes for performing better operational functions. Observably, the organization initiates change mainly in the domain of safety and quality of its products and/or services, its technological competencies, workforce development and new along with advanced business model among others. The organization is quite aware of the challenges and the competiveness of the present day business environment and thus understands the importance of upgrading its competencies in order to sustain in long run. It will be vital to mention that change has been amid the vital characteristics for conducting successful operational function of Aurora Health Care. This can be justified with reference to the fact that the organization seeks to adopt cost control measures in every domain of its business, which further enabled the organization to get engage in conducting lean operations. Apart from this, continuous up-gradation in technological competencies has also been an important characteristic of the operations of the health care unit over the years (Saver, 2006; Etheredge et al.,1996). SWOT Analysis of Aurora Health Care There lay certain strengths along with weaknesses of any business that impose extensive impacts on its overall operations either positively or negatively. Contextually, Aurora Health Care also possesses certain strengths as well as weaknesses and opportunities along with threats that affect the operations of the organization one way or the other. These have been explained in detail in the following. Strengths One of the prominent strengths of Aurora Health Care is its leadership capabilities. Notably, within the operations of the organization, there are several councils that govern and assure the deliverance of proper service to the patients. Owing to effective leadership capabilities, the healthcare organization has been able to ensure attainment of greater patient loyalty, employee satisfaction and most vitally improvement of financial performance over numerous years. Another vital strength of the organization is viewed to be its technological competencies. The use of upgraded technologies in its operations has certainly enabled the organization to attain its predetermined goals, which directly enhanced its overall business efficacy. Another prominent strength of the organization can be apparently noted with regards to the training and development of the employees along with the healthcare professionals. Notably, in this contemporary scenario, the approach of conducting business activities has been transforming rapidly and organizations have the need to adopt certain significant measures in order to sustain in this competitive landscape. Contextually, the constant training and development approach of the healthcare organization developed a continuous learning environment within the workplace, resulting in developing its overall operational performance (Aurora Health Care, 2014; Ginter & Root, 2010). Weaknesses Similar to that of the above discussed strengths, Aurora Health Care is also found to be dealing with certain challenges that furthered weakened its operations. Owing to the scale of its operations, the organization has not been able to develop proper communication within its various departments. Furthermore, there also exist certain challenges in the domain of centralized decision-making procedure as the organization found to remain extensively associated with periodic changes in its operations. This indirectly became a weakness for the organization. Again, with the presence of numerous departments, proper management of the operations in a centralized manner has also become quite challenging for the healthcare unit (Ginter & Root, 2010; Rodrigues, 2009). Opportunities There are also certain opportunities for Aurora Health Care that it can take advantage of. The organization is known for its innovation and effective change initiation as per the transforming business environment. The organization can use this facet to emerge as a market leader in the healthcare sector. Additionally, the company is also known for its effective deliverance of customer services, which can be further used towards strengthening its brand positioning. Apart from this, the approach of the organization to provide constant training to the employees can further assist towards augmenting the performance of its overall workforce (Rodrigues, 2009). Threats Owing to the constant transforming business world within the healthcare domain, it can be affirmed that Aurora Health Care might face certain specific threats. Notably, constant attempt of the organization to comply with the changing business environment of the healthcare sector has certainly become a threat to the core operational value of the organization. Additionally, the level of competition that the organization is facing within the healthcare sector has also augmented the operational difficulties posing threats to its sustainability (Ginter & Root, 2010). Strategic Audit Presentation The strategic audit project has been presented in the form of a personation in front of the tutors and the group members. Each and every section of the strategic audit project was portrayed in the presentation slides in a comprehensive manner. Notably, each of the group members and the tutors present during the presentation has their own perceptions regarding the comprehensiveness, reliability, validity of the information and the overall quality of the project. They provided their advices and viewpoints about the project and recommended for the domains wherein improvements can be made. One aspect, which has been common in the feedback of each of the group members and the tutors, is their appraisal in the level of effort that has been made in order to complete the project with generating positive results. Each of the group members stated that the strategic audit project and the presentation have the professional look and these adhered to all the basic requisites that were needed for this particular project. Similarly, the tutors have also complemented the fact that the project was conducted with accessing both primary as well as secondary sources that provided a wider platform. The tutors also added that the way the information has been presented with regard to each and every operational aspect of the healthcare unit i.e. Aurora Health Care is also a commendable aspect of the strategic audit project. Apart from acquiring positive feedbacks from the groups and the tutors, there were also certain negative comments that highlighted about the weaknesses, which were apparent in the strategic audit project. Most of the team members advocated the need of the use of more primary data than that of the secondary data in the project to enhance its accuracy and reliability. However, the queries of the presentation group have been justified from the aspect that the secondary data, which were used for the completion of the strategic audit project, were mostly taken from reliable and reputed sources including the official website of the organization. Hence, it is quite evident that the information has been able to assure utmost reliability and accuracy for the overall results obtained. On the other hand, it will be vital to mention that acquiring information from the primary sources requires interviewing individuals or the professionals that are integrally associated with the healthcare unit. Since the job role of the healthcare professionals include utmost level of commitment and responsibilities, they hardly get any free or spare time to interact with others. This further minimizes the chance of conducting interviews with the healthcare professionals. For this particular reason, secondary data has been preferred more than that of the primary data for the completion of the strategic audit project. In this similar context, the tutors remained much focused on the absence of core operational process of the healthcare unit in the audit project. Thus, the tutors were explained about the lack of data obtained regarding this aspect. Since the healthcare industry seems to be a highly competitive sector, organizations are reluctant to present confidential information relevant to their respective operations. Conclusion From the above analysis and discussion, it can be summarized that conducting a strategic audit project about any particular organization requires systematic planning and approach so as to ensure that positive results are generated. This particular strategic project has been performed based on the operations of Aurora Health Care. The organization is one of the renowned names in the healthcare industry and thus analyzing its varied operations would be quite vital. Notably, during the process of completing the strategic audit project, an interview has been conducted with a healthcare professional belonging to the chosen organization i.e. Aurora Health Care for acquiring a better idea about the internal operations of the organization. Contextually, the report presented the internal as well as the external working process of the organization and analyzed its strengths along with weaknesses and opportunities as well as threats. By evaluating these aspects, the position of the Aurora Health Care in the present healthcare industry can be determined. References Aurora Health Care. (2014). Training opportunities at Aurora Health Care. Retrieved from http://www.aurorahealthcare.org/jobs/why-aurora/training.asp Aurora Health Care. (2014). Our leaders. Retrieved from http://www.aurorahealthcare.org/aboutus/news-media-center/our-leaders.aspx Aurora Health Care. (2014). Skin care products. Retrieved from http://www.aurorahealthcare.org/services/pharmacy/products/index.asp Aurora Health Care. (2014). Aurora vision center. Retrieved from http://www.aurorahealthcare.org/services/ophthalmology/centers.asp Crosbie, R. (2007). Responding to the challenges facing healthcare. 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