Healthcare mission and philosophies remain the most influential factors in the healthcare industry because they define and design leadership, ethics, management and the progress of health provision. The philosophies can be understood as the main pillars that determine a hospital’s progress, strategic plans, effectiveness, and grothe wth. This paper analyzes the missions and philosophies that characterize healthcare provision at Mercy Hospital Inc. in Miami-Dade, Florida.
Mercy Hospital Inc.
Mercy Hospital Inc. is one of the major hospitals in Miami-Dade County in Florida. It was founded in 1950 and since that time, it has strived to provide the best medical care and healthcare services to citizens of the county and neighboring populations (Mercy Hospital Inc., 2013).
The hospital provides a variety of services such as women health services, sports medicine, behavioral health, outpatient pharmacy, rehabilitation, pulmonary care, cancer care, maternity, diabetes treatment, and robotic surgery. Other services offered include nutrition guidelines, emergency care, and special immunology.
Mercy Hospital Inc. Mission and strategic plan
The hospital was founded on a strong mission that was in line with the philosophy of meeting the unique needs of patients and families. Mercy Hospital is committed to its mission, values, and philosophies. The latter guides the hospital towards meeting its strategic goals and plans (Mercy Hospital Inc., 2013).
One unique feature in its mission statement is curing illnesses and promoting wellness through a well-designed healthcare system. Its values include giving and serving the community, ensuring accountability in its commitment, caring, acting ethically and relating well with clients and the community.
Capon (2008) argues that in healthcare provision leadership, developing a strategic plan in line with the philosophies and goals of an organization is one of the most fundamental elements that provide an organization with direction and vision. These are two critical components that are crucial for growth and success.
Management studies indicate that developing a strategic plan accomplishes growth and success in an organization through effective management of procedures that are related to team-based approach, innovative research and use of evidence-based knowledge.
It is imperative at this point to briefly highlight the healthcare needs of the society that hosts the hospital in order to understand its missions and philosophies in relation to the strategic plan. Miami Dade is a county in the state of Florida with a population of over 2,496,435 people according to the US census report of 2012.
Individuals that dwell specifically in Miami are faced with myriads of health issues. Several people suffer from diverse conditions and illnesses such as cancer, diabetes, and depression. Other diseases affecting the population include chronic illnesses such as liver cirrhosis, diabetes mellitus, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease stroke, and heart disease. Among the elderly in Miami, the leading cause of death has been heart disease.
The community has not been spared by important health conditions and social diseases as well as infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS, influenza and pneumonia among others. Social complications in Miami Dade County include homicide, suicide, accidents from motor vehicles and unintentional injuries.
The strategic plan of Mercy Hospital Inc. has mainly been to serve the community and its patients according to its mission of reducing the burden of illnesses (Mercy Hospital Inc., 2013). Its philosophy underscores that healthcare activities are both art and science and as such, there is a need to plan in terms of serving the hospital setting and the community.
Meeting the goals of a strategic plan using best practices
Hughes (2005) point out that the long term development of plans ought to be based on the philosophies of an organization. It is one of the main strategic planning methods. One of the key successes of Mercy Hospital Inc. in serving the community’s healthcare needs has been setting up a long term vision.
This has been important in providing the institution with enough time to meet its goals. Hamel and Prahalad view this type of strategy as a strategic intent aimed at leveraging core competencies, capabilities and internal resources of a firm in order to accomplish unattainable goals (Hughes, 2005).
Besides, the hospital has been keen on employing a combination of strategic leadership, change, and innovation (Mercy Hospital Inc., 2013). These elements have been some of the surest ways of enabling responsive leadership and service delivery to the immediate community.
Critique of the effectiveness of a strategic plan
Grant (2008) indicates that without strategic leadership, developing and implementing strategic plans may become one of the most difficult things to achieve in any organization. Even with massive studies directed at re-evaluating change management, managing without strategic leadership may lead to minimal achievement. As such, strategic plans must go hand in hand with good leadership that provides strategic direction, enhance commitment and health provision efforts.
On the same note, strategic scholars point out that while leadership is crucial in higher levels of performance, its effects can only be realized when employees in an organization show commitment to a vision or a specific performance criterion.
In agreement, it is critical to point out that in order to achieve the set plans and mission, employees must fervently believe in a leader’s vision of an organization. The effectiveness of the provision of healthcare among the heavily burdened disease population in Miami Florida does not merely require a plan, but total commitment among health workers.
To sum up, developing strategic plans towards providing patients and a community with essential healthcare services is indeed necessary for meeting missions and philosophies of healthcare organizations. As indicated in the paper, Mercy Hospital Inc. has been able to achieve its mission of serving patients and the immediate community through strategic planning.
References
Capon, C. (2008). Understanding strategic management. Harlow, Essex: Pearson Education Ltd.
Grant, R. M. (2008). Contemporary strategy analysis. Malden, MA : Blackwell.
Hughes, R. (2005). Becoming a strategic leader: your role in your organization’s enduring success. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass.
Mercy Hospital Inc. (2013). Mission and values. Web.