Critical Success Factors for Health Planning - Coursework Example

Management of Care Processes Name Institution Course Date Executive Summary Health planning is important for the delivery of quality health outcome to the population. However, healthcare planning is a challenging undertaking considering that planning occurs in an environment characterized by politics, diverse opinions and different stakeholder expectations, as well as media scrutiny. Therefore, to have an effective health planning, certain critical success factors must be incorporated in health planning. The critical success factors for health planning as highlighted in the report include coming up with the right question, selecting the process that is relevant to the issue, stakeholder engagement, effective project management, ensuring ethics in planning, access and use of relevant information, and commitment to monitoring and evaluation. Health planning, however, can be strategic or operational nature. The report has shown that strategic and operational planning is related and shares a lot in common though they differ in the sense that strategic planning involves the setting priorities, directing resources and energy, improving operations and ensuring that employees and stakeholders are working towards achievement of common goals, operational planning is the plan for implementing strategies spelt out in the strategic plan. Introduction Health planning is a critical undertaking in health care institutions. Health planning entails the activities that are undertaken in health care facilities for purposes of improving the efficiency of service delivery and the quality of health outcome (Ginter et al. 2002, p. 12). Health planning is a challenging task as it occurs within an environment that is characterized by politics, different stakeholder expectations and in most cases under media scrutiny. Therefore, healthcare providers must ensure that health planning is well-designed so as to ensure that the external pressures are accommodated and to ensure the provision of quality healthcare services to the population (Butler et al. 1996, p. 137). The objective of this report is twofold. The first part of the report will describe the critical success factors in health planning process. The second of the report will define and differentiate between the strategic planning process and operational planning process as they relate to the healthcare system and highlight areas where the two processes would be of benefit to the healthcare system. Critical Success Factors for Health Planning Health planning is one of the most important processes that ensure the delivery of quality health services to the population. Zenner et al. (2009, p. 1) define a plan as a roadmap that details what an organization intends to do, how to do it and the timeframe for the journey. Health planning, therefore, is a process designed to produce health. Health planning produces health by acting as a bridge that links needs and resources. Therefore, having an effective health planning is critical as it ensures that a health institution has the necessary resources to deliver quality health care services in the most cost-effective and efficient manner (Butler et al. 1996, p. 139). However, to deliver a good health plan, there are a number of critical success factors that must be present as detailed hereunder. Coming Up With The Right Question To deliver a good health plan, the first critical factor to realize this is for the health planners to ensure that the question that is being addressed is the right one; otherwise the entire planning process would be a mess (Zenner et al. 2009, p. 3). The "right" question here means that the question being addressed needs to be specific to the issue being addressed and must be easy to understand. This implies that the question being asked needs not to have technical words, jargons or acronyms that may make them difficult to understand. Additionally, the planning question needs also to be at the right altitude as this would ensure that the issue being addressed induces maximum relevant opinion. Selecting The Process That Is Relevant To The Issue The second most critical success factor in health planning is for the health planner to identify the kind of process that needs to be undertaken to address the issue. This involves deciding whether to use operational or strategic planning. However, Zenner et al. (2009, p. 6) argue that, regardless of the kind of process that is undertaken in the health planning process, the strategies and the decisions that are proposed need to be based on available evidence, such as data on health status and demographics. Health planners go ahead to benchmarks these to the best practices as highlighted in literature review or the local programs (Butler et al. 1996, p. 141). Stakeholder Engagement Stakeholder engagement is regarded as the third most critical success factor in health planning process. A stakeholder refers to any person, group of persons or institutions with an interest in an organization or those that are affected by the activities of an organization. For a typical healthcare institution, the key stakeholders include patients, physicians, insurance companies, employers, government and pharmaceutical companies. These stakeholders have different needs and interest in a healthcare institution. Therefore, engaging these stakeholders in the health planning process is critical as it will ensure that there are diverse views in the planning process and that every stakeholder's opinion is taken into account when coming up with a decision that is likely to affect the directly or indirectly (Zenner et al. 2009, p. 5). Besides, when key stakeholders are not involved in the planning process, this might create implementation challenges when it comes to implementation stage from stakeholders that were not involved in the planning process due to resistance. For instance, when physicians or employers are bypassed in the health planning process, implementing the proposals might become a challenge in the event that the physicians and the employers resist the proposals (Li et al. 2002, 393). Therefore, when coming up with a health plan, it is important that key stakeholders are engaged to ensure success. Effective Project Management Effective project management is the other critical success factor in health planning. In this respect, to have a good health planning, it is important for the planners to ensure the establishment of an effective project management. Ginter et al. (2002, p. 16) suggest that important elements of project management such as process design and implementation need to encourage useful dialogue and debate among the individuals with good knowledge and understanding of the issue at hand. However, Butler et al. (1996, p. 142) suggest that the discussion among the participants needs to be restricted within a time frame to ensure that it does not consume a lot of time. However, the techniques used to build a consensus among the participants in the discussion must be carefully chosen as it can make or destroy the planning process. Ensuring Ethics in Planning Ethics is an important factor in health planning, although evidence indicates that this factor is often overlooked by most health planners. Ethical health planning involves ensuring that planning is done in a transparent and honest manner and that the right people, right questions, and information are addressed, and that results are efficiently handled (Ginter et al. 2002, p. 67). When health planning is conducted in an ethical manner, this makes it easy for the participants to accept the deliberations and proposals because of the transparency and honesty involved in the health planning process. For instance, when planning about health for a given community, issues might arise which have to do with funding decisions. As such, approaching decision making in an ethical and consistent manner is very critical. For instance, when making decisions on how to allocate resources in a tight healthcare funding environment, some might gain while others might lose from the outcome of planning (Zenner et al. 2009, p. 3). The process, however, will raise integrity questions when the process appears to have been poorly balanced in terms of the people involved or when there is a belief that it was founded on inadequate information. Therefore, maintaining high ethical standards in health planning process is very important in ensuring the delivery of effective health outcome that meets the needs of the population. Access and Use of Relevant Information Effective health planning process must be based on relevant information. Relevant information here means that the information being used in health planning must be appropriate for the purpose. Butler et al. (1996, p. 144) argue that, when information used for planning is irrelevant, the chances are that the planning process will produce bad results. Therefore, health planners must ensure that the information which they use for planning purposes is relevant and factual. To achieve this, health planning team should ensure that information is based on hard data, and expert opinion (Li et al. 2002, 389). Additionally, the information used for health planning ought to be altitudinal and behavioral in nature as this would ensure the production of a plan that not only makes logical sense but also easy to implement. Commitment to Monitoring and Evaluation Monitoring and evaluation are the other critical success factor in health planning. Planning is not a one-time process; rather is a process that is cyclical in nature (Li et al. 2002, 390). This implies that planning is a continuous process that is iterative in the sense that one cycle of planning leads to another. Therefore, effective health planning must take into consideration the circumstances that have changed from one cycle of planning to another and the implications that implementation of the previous planning would have on the current planning. Nevertheless, this is only possible where planner has strong commitment to monitoring and evaluation process to identify the impacts that the previous planning circles might have on the current planning. In fact, the majority of planning processes factor in monitoring and evaluation processes and creates the tools that are needed to ensure effective planning. Strategic Versus Operational Planning Processes Strategic Planning Processes Strategic planning is an important role of executive management of an organization. Perera and Peiró (2012, p. 769) define strategic planning as the activities that an institution uses the set priorities, direct resources, and energy, improve operations and ensure that employees alongside the stakeholders of an organization are working towards achievement of common goals. In other words, strategic planning is a process used to define the strategy that an organization intends to adopt to ensure the achievement of organizational goals. The strategic planning process is involved when an organization has a variety and open questions that need to be answered, and there exist many routes on the table (Butler et al. 1996, p. 137). An example of strategic planning is where a health institution is identifying the appropriate model to use in delivering mental health services to patients in the locality and how to adopt the model. In most cases, strategic planning process takes a fresh look at an issue and the results that take time to materialize but will be in place for a longer period that extends beyond one funding cycle. Swansburg and Swansburg (2002, p. 67) argue that a good strategic plan should be revised or changed any time the context service changes. An example of a change in content that might require revision of a strategic plan include where there are changes to sustainability, where a new best practice that needs to be incorporated in the plan is identified or in circumstances where the opportunity to expand arises. The commonly applicable planning standard is that an organizational vision should be reevaluated every three to five years and that the strategic issues that arise from the reevaluation of the vision factored in the development of a new strategy to fit the current circumstances (Perera & Peiró 2012, p. 771). The building blocks of strategic planning include strategic objectives and directions, though this may sometimes include the elements of implementation and planning. Below is Vancouver Island Health Authority (VIHA's) strategic planning approach that serves as a roadmap of what the healthcare provider intends to achieve over the next five years (The Canadian Foundation for Healthcare Improvement 2009). VIHA's strategic plan above sets the direction for the healthcare institution towards ensuring an enhanced integration, innovation, and responsiveness for health services in the entire region. The strategic plan is based on a number of areas that include prioritization of health issues, outlining the pressing challenges to population health and service provision, objectives and strategic themes as well as strategic direction (The Canadian Foundation for Healthcare Improvement 2009). Components of Strategic Planning Process In any strategic planning process, a number of activities are involved. These include a visioning exercise, mission and goal creation, establishment of objectives, strategic direction establishment, the establishment of a model to create and monitor success and creation of timetable or implementation plan (Ginter et al. 2002, p. 41). It is important to note that a good strategic planning process ought to be supported by the following: qualitative and quantitative data, stakeholder engagement, use of project management and facilitation tools, such as SWOT analysis and monitoring and evaluation protocols. Operational Planning Operational planning is a detailed plan providing a roadmap of how employees and organizational departments will contribute to the realization of strategic goals (Swansburg & Swansburg 2002, p. 67). In other words, an operational plan is a plan used for implementing strategies spelled out in the Strategic Plan. Any operational planning exercise begins at the point of objective setting. For instance, an operational planning may begin by setting an objective such as to increase the number of patients served through primary care clinic. Components of Operational Planning Process An operational planning has the following components. First is an operational planning must have a statement of purpose. A statement of purpose spells out the targets that a health institution hopes to achieve and the success indicators. Second, a good operational planning should involve the use of available, relevant information or data (Swansburg & Swansburg 2002, p. 68). Third, an operational planning should involve stakeholder engagement. Additionally, an operational planning involves the selection of priority action plan. Finally, operational planning includes creating an implementation budget and timetable. Operational planning is similar to strategic planning in the sense that it is supported by tools that are used to support strategic planning. However, Ginter et al. (2002, p. 65) notes that, in operational planning, tighter questions are applied to the tools. Some of the models that are included in operational planning but lacking in strategic planning include hierarchy model and program logic model. Conclusion Health planning is an important process in a healthcare institution. Health planning ensures that health institution has adequate resources and manpower to deliver quality health outcomes to the population. However, there are a number of critical success factors for health planning process that health planners should take into account when developing a health plan. The factors include coming up with the right question, selecting the process that is relevant to the issue, stakeholder engagement, effective project management, ensuring ethics in planning, access and use of relevant information, and commitment to monitoring and evaluation. However, as indicated in the report, strategic planning and operational planning share a lot in common, especially the components. The main difference between the two is that whereas strategic planning involves the setting priorities, directing resources and energy, improving operations and ensuring that employees and stakeholders are working towards achievement of common goals, operational planning is the plan for implementing strategies spelled out in the Strategic Plan. References Butler, T. W., Keong, L. G., & Everett, L. N 1996, “The operations management role in hospital strategic planning. Journal of Operation Management vol. 14, pp. 137-156. Ginter, P. M., Swayne, L. E., Duncan, W. J 2002, Strategic management of healthcare organizations (4th ed). Blackwell, Boston. Li, L. X., Benton, W. C., Keong, L. G 2002, “The impact of strategic operations management decisions on community hospital performance,” Journal of Operation Management vol. 20, pp. 389- 408. Perera, F. P. R., & Peiró, M 2012, “Strategic planning in healthcare organizations,” Rev Esp Cardiol, vol. 65, no. 8, pp. 749-754. DOI: 10.1016/j.rec.2012.04.004 Swansburg, R. C., & Swansburg, R. J 2002, Introduction to management and leadership for nurse managers. Jones & Bartlett Learning, New York. The Canadian Foundation for Healthcare Improvement 2009, Consulting the experts: How Vancouver Island Health Authority engaged communities in strategic planning, viewed 5 October 2016 http://www.cfhi-fcass.ca/SearchResultsNews/09-11-01/3151374c-4f98-4510-8575-2a8010b529ee.aspx Zenner, P., Mattie, L., & Zaharias, K 2009, Ten critical factors for health plan success in implementing ICD-10. 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