Strategic planning focuses on the future of a business by analyzing
operational priorities and resource availability, establishing clear
strategic objectives for desired business results, and designing an
action plan to attain them. Project management takes one of the
objectives and manages the costs, schedules, and resources to
accomplish the desired result. Building the correct team of
stakeholders matter in the planning so that all parties affected by the
change will understand its necessity. Communicating changes early
helps with employee buy-in and cuts down on resistance. b
For Gateway Health Systems, they needed to address several issues
in their processes. Identifying the mission and vision statements for
each facility was important to determine a unified one. Performing
an audit or risk assessment was performed using a SWOT analysis to
identify issues. A project team needed to be established so that
policies and procedures could be implemented. The Joint
Commission and HIPAA guidelines were addressed and trainings
were scheduled. Although the organizations were successful
individually, merging the three was challenging. This process needs
to be monitored and measured to ensure success and that the
objectives are met.
