Introduction
The healthcare business has undergone significant transformations in the recent decade, not only in ideology but also in the implementation of the “Affordable Care Act.” Economic, financial, social, technical, legal, and ecological variables affect business planning. Patients, health, and preventive services are all things that Americans want to see more of. Advances in patient needs, demography, labor, and technology associated with healthcare affect institutions. This paper focuses on the American Academy of Pediatrics’ strategic plan using the SWOT analysis tool. The “American Academy of Pediatrics” (AAP) is a pediatrician-led professional corporation based in Illinois, and its Federal Relations office is located in Washington. Strategic planning in health facilities includes improved communication, sharing and developing visions, increased employee engagement and motivation, transformational authority and leadership, and increased team collaboration and cooperation. Therefore, strategic planning is vital since it simplifies communication at every department level in a healthcare firm, enabling stakeholders and employees of an institution to know their establishment’s plan.
Strategic Management, Thinking, Planning, and Managing Momentum
Strategic management is known as identifying a company’s future, goal setting that will advance the company toward that long term, and selecting the major initiatives the business will undertake to fulfill those objectives. It entails maintaining that plan emphasis throughout a three- to five-year timeframe. Strategic thinking identifies and develops unique, innovative solutions by facilitating a stimulating and creative debate among those who may influence the direction of an association, such as the directing. It is a strategic planning component, a category of serious thinking, both administrative and practical. Strategic thinking involves identifying the big image, thinking ahead, and pushing thoughts into action to obtain a competitive business advantage (Phillips Paul, 3). Passing judgment on the combination of medical diseases, patients, and treatment plans, enhancing the service delivery process, and relocating care programs focused on local, provincial, or global patients are instances of the planned intellectual in healthcare.
In healthcare firms, strategic planning involves formulating aims and setting objectives that enhance the firms to establish long-term visions. With objectives and goals, healthcare firms develop plans to accomplish them. According to Clarke Caroline, healthcare firms create objectives and goals based on their needs, technological advancements, government policies, and economic trends (2). Strategic planning plays a crucial role in the success of healthcare institutions. Thus, firms understand how they operate to create efficient strategic plans for their entire systems.
Managers consider the hierarchy of their institutions to develop a strategic plan. A firm’s objectives and a set path to attain them motivate a company’s staff at every level. In healthcare management, effective planning enables governments to develop clear communication which addresses employees’ critical issues, the firm’s goals, and visions (Clarke Caroline, 3). When organizations develop clear communications, stakeholders, and employees will have faith and confidence. Confidence and faith give employees the morale to be motivated and committed to achieving their establishment’s vision. Additionally, they have the trust and confidence to make appropriate financial decisions. A developed, communicated and executed strategic planning for healthcare institutions help individuals to work towards attaining their goals.
Strategic planning enhances healthcare workers to get recognized and heard by their seniors. When employees get recognized by their leaders in healthcare institutions, they are motivated; hence improving their productivity, safety, and engagement management. Employees get encouraged to make decisions that benefit the organization. On top of that, employees are motivated to perform above the least acceptable standard described in their job description or performance assessment. Through strategic planning, employees develop a transformational type of leadership that pushes them to work harder in their healthcare workplaces (Willis Graham, 5). This type of leadership includes methods that are cited in their sectors. Transformational leadership communicates healthcare firms’ vision, making managers believe in their employees and have the capabilities to yield high-performance levels. Leaders that enable their employees to comprehend their responsibilities contribute to their organizations’ success.
Team cooperation and collaboration are essential elements in delivering quality healthcare. For a healthcare firm to succeed, its team members must collaborate and cooperate. Teamwork enables members of a healthcare facility to improve their service delivery and performance. In healthcare, efficient strategic planning models unite a firm’s employees to yield quality care, improved customer service, and higher productivity. American Academy of Pediatrics develops decisions before sharing its strategic plan with its employees and stakeholders. A well-thought-out strategic plan helps in promoting teamwork, employee engagement, and performance responsibility (Rosen Michael, 4). Stakeholders and employees may attain long-term objectives if all levels in a healthcare workplace work together in harmony. Maintaining strategic momentum is one of management’s fundamental goals. This requires overcoming lethargy and getting down to business to achieve specific goals. Strategic momentum is founded on regularly aligning decision-making procedures and outcomes like strategic planning and assessment. The capacity to discern developing trends and help them take form is crucial to controlling strategy.
Analytical Tool
The SWOT analysis tool is appropriate for usage as an effective strategy in aiding the American Academy of Pediatrics to attain its deliberate plan. It helps a company discover where it stands from competitors, develop as a business, and its susceptibility. This simple method will facilitate the identification of possibilities and risks. SWOT analysis is vital in healthcare strategy selection and formulation since it involves a significant subjective element. Successful healthcare firms build on their strengths, work on their weaknesses, and defend against internal issues and external threats. These firms monitor their overall business atmosphere and realize and explore novel opportunities quicker than their rivals. SWOT analysis plays a crucial role in strategic planning. SWOT analysis provides information for strategic planning in healthcare firms (Benzaghta Mostafa Ali, 1). Additionally, it builds a firm’s strengths and reverses its weaknesses. Through SWOT analysis, healthcare firms can optimize their responses to opportunities.
Healthcare firms are prone to various threats that undermine their efficiency and productivity. However, SWOT analysis enhances organizations in the healthcare field to evade threats and identify core competencies. Firms can set their objectives for strategic planning because it lets them know their present, past, and future information, developing future goals. SWOT analysis helps firms synchronize their resources and abilities in the competitive environment. The model is crucial for firms’ strategic planning, enhancing their opportunities to expand their medical practices (Benzaghta Mostafa Ali, 1). Good strategic plans have mission statements vital in a firm’s planning, documenting, and execution of all processes involved. In addition, a SWOT analysis allows the American Academy of Pediatrics to examine their internal abilities, factors that undermine their success, and threats and opportunities. Hence, the firm should develop ways to counter the challenges and maximize the opportunities for its long-term operations.
How SWOT Will Support the Proposal
The SWOT tool will help the strategic plan by examining the “American Academy of Pediatrics” internal strengths, faintness, chances, and intimidations (reputation, patents, location). They can be changed over time by the American Academy of Pediatrics but will require effort. Existing firms can use a SWOT analysis to measure and reply to changing conditions, and new enterprises can use it to get started. SWOT will play a vital role in analyzing what the American Academy of Pediatrics does better and developing a successful future course of action. The tool can reveal aspects of the business that are dragging or that the competitors may take advantage of the company that does not protect itself. The tool considers both external and internal challenges or what is happening in the American Academy of Pediatrics (Benzaghta Mostafa Ali, 1). Some of these variables are under the firm’s control, while others are not.
Once a firm has identified, recorded, and assessed as various variables as possible, the appropriate course of action becomes apparent. SWOT may appear simple, but it may disclose more when used intelligently and cooperatively. For instance, the firm may be well conscious of the employee’s abilities. Unless it chronicles its strengths alongside vulnerabilities and threats, it may not realize how accurate they are unless it chronicles its strengths. Similarly, the business may have reasonable fears about its company’s flaws, but by following the research steps, it can uncover that a reward is given more than money.
Internal and External Factors That Could Become Barriers to the Success of the Proposed Strategic Plan
Within the American Academy of Pediatrics, the importance of strong leadership cannot be overstated. Organizational culture is influenced by the company’s management style or other analytical tactics. Companies frequently create a formal structure with their mission, goals, and standards. Employee worth, favorable or unfavorable nature, and family communication effectiveness are among the cultural repercussions of leadership tactics. Workers at high-performing workplaces have the skills to work together more effectively. People within the American Academy of Pediatrics work together on ideas and solutions to attain long-term objectives. Internal issues may impact a business’s aptitude to accomplish its objectives. An industry’s strengths possess a beneficial influence, while limitations are harmful to a business’s success (Benzaghta Mostafa Ali, 1). Internal variables, such as financing, investment prospects, income sources, physical resources, equipment, facilities, and personnel, such as workers, clients, and volunteers, could become roadblocks to the proposed strategic plan’s success.
External considerations such as economic, technological, and societal restraints could create barriers. As technology advances, businesses may gain from productivity advancements or find it harder to compete with them. A business that offers GPS devices for private cars, for instance, may observe a decrease in sales due to the integration of GPS on mobile apps. By producing new items, they can overcome these obstacles. For illustration, modern approaches can gather patient data, maintain medical records, and expedite patient care (Benzaghta Mostafa Ali, 1). From worker health to a business’s efforts to prosper, the market affects every area of everyday life. If the environment continues to deteriorate and jobless growth, firms may be forced to put efforts to retain employees and change their activities to stay successful. If a company makes goods cheaper, it might consider lowering prices to increase sales and profit. Companies consider ethical issues while manufacturing and marketing goods and leverage current affairs, activities, and social injustices to draw customers.
Solution
Identifying internal and external hazards helps the American Academy of Pediatrics restrict its business risk knowledge. External risks are economic occurrences outside the firm structure. Exterior occurrences that result in significant risks are difficult for firms to manage or precisely predict. Hence, lowering the hazards is difficult since internal hazards emerge from the American Academy of Pediatrics strategy and are encountered during normal business operations. Because a company can predict these hazards accurately, it stands a reasonable chance of reducing internal business danger. The phrase “business risk” consists of various factors and events that impact the American Academy of Pediatrics’s operations and efficiency. Business risks may limit a company’s capacity to generate capital gains for its stakeholders and investors.
The Specific Segment of the Market to Be Targeted
Hospital marketing is a sort of public relations that focuses on providing high-quality medical care while satisfying the needs of patients and their families. Patients and families, neighborhoods, doctors, healthcare experts, hospital employees, and society are part of the targeted market (Benzaghta Mostafa Ali, 1). Marketing for hospitals serves three goals: enabling hospitals to comprehend future consumer desires better and establishing a strong management strategy for enhanced profitability by evaluating the target market. Second, it offers consumers readily available and crucial information to help them avoid doctor shopping, leading to treatment delays, worsening medical conditions, and higher medical costs. Third, customers have access to high-quality, low-cost healthcare. Hospital marketing provides several advantages, including saving healthcare resources and providing consumers with accurate and nutritious information to enhance the facility’s image. They believe that hospital promotion will lower medical services quality and boost competition among health groups, ultimately resulting in the supply of unnecessary medical services. Medicine’s primary purpose is to help people. Hospital marketing has the potential to give consumers accurate health information and options while promoting medical care quality.
Determining how to conduct hospital marketing to maximize client satisfaction and efficiency is crucial. The hospital’s strategic approach can increase customer satisfaction or impact customer perceptions of health groups; it is a crucial aspect in determining customer loyalty. The hospital’s external communication plan is an essential factor influencing the hospital’s impression (Benzaghta Mostafa Ali, 1). Marketing interaction aims to enhance the customer’s comprehension of the health center and distinguish the facility from competing companies. It notifies the value of services, enhances the customer’s taste and consumer options towards the clinic, and enlightens the brand equity of the hospice. An information effort, an action task, and a publicity project should all be included. Volunteer medical programs, patient grievance reporting lines, notification boards, school programs, and lectures significantly boost the hospital’s reputation. On the other hand, newspapers, television, and press conferences, according to the hospital’s qualified medical staff, may help increase the hospital’s appeal. Because the medical profession is unique and largely unaffected by the economy, healthcare marketing can help the American Academy of Pediatrics create a consumer base.
Conclusion and Recommendation
Businesses can use social platforms to track their customers’ activity or potential buyers since all communal sites are available to various people. It is more effective since it allows advertisers to understand the target public’s likes, opinions, and activities, boosting more effective advertising methods to tempt them. Social media advertising is crucial because it decreases marketing costs and improves lead generation, provides analytics that supply firms with more market data, “humanize” brands, and encourages conversions.
Sources
Benzaghta Mostafa Ali. 2021. SWOT analysis applications: An integrative literature review. Web.
Clarke Caroline. 2019. Strategic planning in healthcare. Web.
Phillips Paul. 2018. Strategic thinking. Web.
Rosen Michael. 2018. Teamwork in healthcare: Key discoveries enabling safer, high-quality care. Web.
Willis Graham. 2018. Strategic workforce planning in healthcare: A multi-methodology approach. Web.