Budget Example/Financial Plan
pamelaswhaers
environmental_analysis.docxRunning Head: ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS 1
Environmental Analysis 11
Environmental Analysis
Pamela S. Waters
HCS/586
Debra Schrager, Instructor
Environmental Analysis of Arkansas Children Hospital
Arkansas Children Hospital is a private not-for-profit organization. The hospital provides healthcare facilities to children at the age of birth to the age of 21. It also offers an extensive variety of healthcare services in the therapeutic field including asthma, infectious diseases, cardiology, immunology, pharmacology, oncology, neuroscience, rehabilitation, pharmacology and others (ACH Child & Family Services, n.d.).
When conducting a comprehensive SWOT analysis of the healthcare organization, it outlined an in-depth strategic analysis of the businesses and activities of the organization. Based on the SWOT analysis, this paper will present an environmental analysis of Arkansas Children’s Hospital that outlines how important it is to develop a strategic plan that will be beneficial to the organization as well as the accomplishment of the visions, goals and mission.
Conducting an environmental analysis of the business is very important in that it allows you to accurately evaluate the surrounding circumstances as it relates to the success or failure of the specified organization. In this case, Arkansas Children’s Hospital can conduct an environmental analysis that will assist them in implementing a strategic plan that will be beneficial for the organization and the local communities.
Environmental analysis is a process which is used to identify all the internal and external elements that can affect the performance of an organization (Wheelen & Hunger, 2010). In order to be successful, the hospital will need to adapt to their internal environment by including financial and human resources, operations, technologies and policies to their external environment. This therefore calls for the performance of the environmental analysis to identify the possible influence of given aspects of the operating and general environments of the ACH’s activities of healthcare provision to children.
The purpose of the environmental analysis is to identify the threats and opportunities in the healthcare environment with regard to its weaknesses and strengths. An environmental analysis is also conducted as a way to gain a better understanding of the opportunities, threats, weaknesses and strengths of ACH to know where adjustments and corrective measures should be put in the development of the strategic plan.
The environment analysis is conducted also to assist in the process of developing the strategic plan that helps the hospital management to make an informed decision concerning the external environment of the hospital. Some of the external environmental factors that require consideration involve changes in politics of the day, environment pollution regulations, change in population demographics and technological development within the health sector.
It is essential to note that the environmental analysis plays a critical role in policy decisions and corporate planning.
The environmental analysis is basically a three step process where the organization has to first identify the environmental factors that affect the operations of Arkansas. For example, ACH may consider prevalence of certain diseases and their causes on children. The organization then gathers information regarding the selected environmental factors which can probably impact on the activities of the organization. This information is critical in forming the strategic plan for the organization since they serve to forecast the impact of each of the environmental factors on the organization and project ways of improving the activities of the healthcare organization in order to achieve its mission, goals and objectives.
Based on the vision of the Arkansas Children Hospital, the organization aims at transforming the delivery of healthcare to children in Arkansas, the local environment and abroad (ACH Child & Family Services, n.d.). This analysis is also important in that it will help in the establishment of the needed transformations through the use of research, innovative advancements in care provision and the advocacy for education that can enhance healthcare improvement. Generally, the environmental analysis is evaluated in the process of developing strategic plan for the organization.
The effectiveness of the business plan depends on how well the organization management understands their business (Muralidaran, 2007). The developed strategic plan for the hospital should be in a position to respond to different environment conditions. Failure to respond accordingly to the business environment exposes the hospital to the risk of failure. The hospital utilizes and continues to implement the effective business environment analysis to forecast on how future activities that might be undertaken by the hospital will alter the hospital operations or business.
Arkansas Children’s Hospital will also develop the proposed business plan basing it on the forecast that the environmental analysis will have helped to develop. The hospital will then prepare for all the possible events that are anticipated to occur. Some of the possible change events may involve government changing the tax policy for health organizations. In the case of such event occurring, the hospital accounting practices will be affected by the period of implementation. The proposed strategic plan for the hospital must be able to address the issue and provide the best alternative to handle the changes.
The environmental analysis should also help to develop a business plan that allows flexibility. The flexibility, in this case, refers to the ability to respond to unpredictable changes within the health sector. The developed strategic plan must be in a position to prepare the hospital for the best strategy to handle such occurrences.
The competitive analysis allows us to develop matrices for spotting underserved or unreserved gaps in the market and strategically plan towards filling them. Additionally, through competitive analysis, we identified the steps that other health organizations take in improving their healthcare provision, particularly with regard to professionalism, technology and relationship with their clients.
Conducting the competitive analysis was effective in that it gave us the opportunity identifying various opportunities for differentiating our products and services for better care provision versus our competitors. These aspects of competitive analysis gave us a clear way in which we should direct our strategic plan based on the development of healthcare services that our competitors currently provide.
Arkansas Children’s Hospital fully embraces the competition analysis as an important tool for ensuring the establishment of a sound strategic plan (Friend & Zehle, 2004). The hospital management uses the following methods techniques to source for crucial information about the competitors. One of the techniques involves analyzing the recorded data of the competitors. This data is readily available in published form such as annual reports as well as services brochures. The other technique involves observable data. The hospital relies on various sources to gather the required information about the competitors. Some of the source of the observable data from competitor services pricing, advertising campaigns, and promotions.
Arkansas Children’s Hospital focuses on obtaining competitor information about customer satisfaction, their future investment strategies, strategies for new services, and contractual terms with various stakeholders and partnerships and customer retention rate or levels (Fine, 2009).
The hospital management focuses on understanding the hospital competitive advantages compared to the competitors. The other benefit of analyzing the competitors is that it enables the hospital management to understand the past, present and future strategies of the competitors. The information is essential in formulating the future hospital strategies that would help make in making it more competitive advantaged. The competitor analysis helps the hospital establish the returns obtained by the competitors from investing into a new investment project that the hospital has not yet implemented. The information on returns helps the hospital to strategize on how to achieve the best returns from new projects.
There are some economic, legal and regulatory issues that may potentially affect the strategic plan mainly because strategic planning involves allocating resources towards accomplishing the long term goals and objectives (Wheelen & Hunger, 2010). The success of the strategic plan depends largely on financial planning. It is essential to note that without access to capital, plans set out by ACH cannot be met. By selecting knowledgeable management staff, they will be aware that strategic planning requires adaptation to countless changes in financial and operational variables. Therefore, if ACH is experiencing financial constraints, management would have to implement measures that cut expenses until the problems are solved. The plans implemented will generally subject the organization to continuous dynamic adjustments. This will continue as long as the financial constraints continue to increase. Additionally, the strategic plan could also be affected by legal issues such as possible legal dispute with major stakeholders based on the strategic plans in place, diversity issues resulting from recruitment of culturally diverse workforce. Because of their vested interest in the company, stakeholders have a legal responsibility to make sure all issues concerning the organization are resolved.
Legally, it is also their responsibility to ensure that all interdepartmental conflicts are resolved because they can create legal conflicts and most importantly, cause the strategic plan to become ineffective. It is very important that the strategic plan is in accordance with the legal requirements of the government, environment or local authority.
Based on Arkansas Children Hospital’s SWOT analysis, the organization has the ability to accomplish their mission, goals and objectives. ACH places the health of the children in their local community and abroad as their first mission (ACH, n.d.). They have implemented programs that help to identify healthcare issues before they evolve therefore placing majority of its focus on prevention. ACH has the responsibility of transforming the quality of healthcare delivery to children.
The organization has relevant resources that can help meet these goals based on its strengths included in the SWOT analysis. It provides high quality medical care to children therefore forming the basis of their objectives. They also have a long term staff and loyal employees that enhance professionalism in their responsibilities. They are accountable to the rules and regulations that guarantee the quality services they provide. The team are also goal oriented and work towards achieving the best. They are also trust worthy. The organization also enhances research and innovation which is key to the improved ways of service delivery.
Also, based on the SWOT analysis in the Excel attachment, the goals and objectives of ACH for the next three years will entail the following:
In the first year, ACH will aim at improving the long term health and wellbeing of each patient and increasing their access to medical care. This will be achieved by improving enrollment in health coverage, calling for time off for the parents to take care of their children, expanding health-based centers, increasing clinical hours, increasing the number of providers and also increasing the number of children who receive well-child exams.
Research has indicated that enrolling parents in health coverage will increase child coverage and also allow an opportunity to get the level of coverage they require. The Affordable Care Act has the possibility of lowering the rate of uninsured children by even 40% as parents get more access to affordable plans (ACH Funding, n.d.).
For the second year, the organization will also enhance or facilitate sexual education. We will also implement programs that will increase patient and their family’s feedback on their experience during their visit within the hospital. Data collected indicates that there are alarming rates of teen pregnancy, high rates of sexually transmitted diseases and early sexual activities in adolescents in Arkansas (ACH Funding, n.d.). Arkansas also possesses the highest number of teen births. Based on the new effective policies and programs to prevent teen pregnancy, we will be able to provide education and reduction programs and support for pregnant and parenting teens.
This can be achieved by improving the capacity of education and schools to offer comprehensive health education, professional development and training that include prevention sexually transmitted diseases within a widespread health education curriculum. Additionally, Arkansas will expand capacities for home visiting in order to help pregnant women and new mothers on how to make positive choices for the health of their families.
They are also aiming at facilitating a solid enrollment effort in healthcare coverage under the Affordable Care Act, including reproductive and prevention healthcare.
Enhancing programs that reduces the chances of obesity among children is another goal for the third year. Inadequate physical activities and poor nutrition will be considered by Arkansas since they cause childhood obesity. Many people lack available healthful food options since they contribute to the consumption of high fat, high-calorie processed food. This will be enhanced by expanding programs which improve the knowledge of parents regarding healthy food choices, food preparation and shopping via school curriculum.
Arkansas will also strengthen policies for nutrition and physical activities in school, reducing access to sugar sweetened beverages in the public and educate the public communities on the impacts of these beverages on health.
Increasing the patient and family feedback that the organization receives is important in that it allows an opportunity for the hospital to identify areas for improvement before an extreme issue arises. The feedback can be obtained by offering the patient or their responsible family member a questionnaire during the discharge phase of their visit.
In conclusion, environmental analysis played a critical role in the strategic planning process of Arkansas Children Hospital. It is used in identifying internal and external elements that affect the performance of an organization. Competitive analysis also played an essential role in strategic planning process amidst some evolving economic, legal and regulatory issues affected this process. Arkansas has the ability of accomplishing its mission, goals and objectives in the previously set strategic plans.
References
ACH Child & Family Services (n.d.). Retrieved April 15, 2016 from http://www.achservices.org/
Paediatric Health Care |Arkansas Children’s Hospital|Little Rock, Arkansas (n.d.) Retrived April 15, 2016 from http://www.arcchildrens.org/
ACH Funding|ACH Payment (n.d.) Retrieved April 15, 2016 from Solutions: http://www.ach-payments.com/ach-funding/
Wheelen, T. & Hunger J. (2010). Concepts in Strategic Management & Business Policy: Achieving Sustainability (12th Ed.). Prentice Hall: Pearson Education.
