Based on the activities of Mountain View Health Center, the main stakeholders that would be involved in the strategic planning process are patients, government, healthcare personnel, and insurance companies (Laureate Education, 2013). Stakeholders would be involved in the strategic planning process based on their unique roles. For example, the government’s role will be formulating health laws governing the organization’s activities, while healthcare personnel will be instruments of healthcare service delivery.
Patients are also defined as stakeholders because their needs and safety dictate the type of care provided. In addition, the hospital’s healthcare services are tailored to improve their wellbeing. Lastly, the role of insurance companies would be to provide a payment plan for covering the cost of healthcare.
Broadly, the above-mentioned stakeholders could be classified into two groups – internal and external stakeholders. Internal stakeholders are the healthcare personnel and patients, while external stakeholders include the government and insurance companies. The stakeholders identified above should be involved in the strategic planning stage because at this point of strategic formulation, they could discuss and share views regarding the provision of healthcare services. They should be involved through consultations at every level of engagement.
Strategies for Cultivating Relationships
It is important to cultivate positive relationships between the above-mentioned groups of stakeholders. This view aligns with those of Galunic and Hermreck (2012) which suggest that successful strategic planning requires managers to satisfy the needs of all stakeholders involved in strategic planning. To manage stakeholder relationships among the four groups identified above, it is important to make sure their views are sought throughout every stage of the strategic planning process (Harmon, Fontaine, Plews-Ogan, & Williams, 2012).
Additionally, it is important to have an open mind when engaging stakeholders because each group needs to feel that their views or contributions to the strategic planning process are valued. Effective communication should be embraced as an engagement tool when addressing these stakeholders and conflict resolution should always be adopted as an instrument for building stronger synergies within the organization. Overall, these strategies should be adopted to cultivate relationships with these stakeholders.
How Involvement of Stakeholders would Improve Likelihood of Success
The involvement of stakeholders in the strategic planning processes of Mountain View Health Center would increase the likelihood of success by improving employee buy-in (Murphy-Hoefer, Andrade, Maines, & Martin, 2011). This view is supported by studies, which have shown that stakeholders who are engaged in the decision-making process tend to have a strong commitment and a high degree of ownership for the actions taken by their organizations (Murphy-Hoefer et al., 2011).
The probability of reporting higher quality service output is also likely to increase with improved stakeholder engagement because studies have also shown that when more people are involved in strategic planning, the quality of the output is higher.
References
Galunic, C., & Hermreck, I. (2012). How to help employees ‘get’ strategy. Harvard Business Review, 90(12), 24.
Harmon, R. B., Fontaine, D., Plews-Ogan, M., & Williams, A. (2012). Achieving transformational change: Using appreciative inquiry for strategic planning in a school of nursing. Journal of Professional Nursing, 28(2), 119-124.
Laureate Education (2013). Case study: Mountain View Health Center. Web.
Murphy-Hoefer, R., Andrade, M. S., Maines, D. E., & Martin, M. (2011). Stakeholder input in establishing an evaluation plan for tobacco counter-marketing campaigns. American Journal of Health Education, 42(2), 66-73.