First of all, don’t be afraid to ask the hard questions. Strategic planning is vitally important and needs to go beyond just bricks and mortar. I am currently with a small (50 bed) rural NFP community hospital that does not have a quality strategic plan in place, other than brick and mortar. I have been trying to get my CEO to engage the board and medical staff to have a formalized strategic planning process. Even though we have some structure and new programs being implemented, having a planning session that provides internal and external industry challenges and opportunities is important.

At my former employer, we had annual planning sessions with the BOT, Medical Staff, leadership and selected department/service managers. The sessions included successes of the prior and current years, examination of internal and external forces that affected the 300 bed facility, debates and work sessions to improve, expand, or adding new programs to support the facility, medical staff and community.

To answer your primary question, NO, asking is not unrealistic. Strategic planning is important for all services. Ultimately, the future of the organization resides in sound strategic planning sessions.

I am sure there are others on your board that are thinking similarly and you will generate good and needed dialogue on this subject.

Health care is changing and the future of providing the same services may change greatly. Without having a strategic plan, how does the organization know where it is headed. I can only imagine how frustrating it could be to not have that sense of direction. 3 Years ago we had a strategic planning session for 2 days offsite with every board member, physician participation and with the senior admin team. We had a consultant take us through the process of re-evaluating our Mission, Vision, and values. Based on this, we then created objectives that we felt were necessary. These objectives were very broad and globally set the tone for the "pillars" of success. Under these objectives we created strategies. Some of these were very specific as far as developing a business plan utilizing decision making criteria for programs or services we wanted to review. The strategies must be measureable and be able to be monitored. Based on this strategic plan, the senior admin team created an action plan with a "map" for the next 3 years. We report quarterly to our board on our progress on the map. The BOD has sense of direction and comfort in actually hearing and seeing the progress of our plan. They acknowledge this success and recognize that the plan was based on "big hairy audacious goals" so not achieving every initiative still serves the organization well. Through documentation of our decision making criteria (everything we do must relate to our strategic plan) we have decided some of our goals are not in the best interest of the organization or the community. It has been 3 years and we plan on having another retreat to review and create our next 3 -5 year plan. This has been highly successful for our organization and it keeps us focused on our mission, vision and values.

I agree with Laura and Dave. It is not unrealistic to ask for a 5 year plan.

Sharon,I agree with the responses already rendered. I am from a 25 bed Critical Access Hospital, and we just completed a 3 year Strategic Planning Process very similar to Laura's. We decided on a 3 year plan due to the fact that the healthcare environment is changing so fast, and 5 years almost seemed to be too long. We, too, report our progress to the Board and have quarterly leadership meetings to share our progress. We also used a Consulting Group to assist us in our Strategic Plan process with participation in the process by our Board, Physicians, Senior leadership, employees, volunteers, and community.

I agree that input from management is not only appropriate but critical. I am with a 115 bed NFP hospital and we routinely engage in the strategic planning process every 3 to 5 years. Including management in the discussion will provide valuable input from a key group of stakeholders, plus it will give them a sense of ownership in the plan. We believe in the philosophy of “bottom up” input from a variety of stakeholders, including management, physicians, patients, employees, volunteers, vendors, community leaders and BOT which leads to a “top down” decision making process. After getting input from all key stakeholders the senior leaders will develop the strategic objectives and options for consideration and approval by the BOT. With the current state of healthcare reform, a 3 year time line may be more realistic time frame for a strategic plan.

I think that your organization is lucky to have such an engaged Board of Director. And, you should fully expect your MGNT team to present the strategic plan(s) to the Board for feedback and comment.

I represent 435 bed acute care facility in a metropolitan area. We have short (3 yr) and long term (10 yr) strategic plans. We present on a regularly basis our stragetic plans to the Board for their feedback. In addition, we have service line strategic plans (3 yr plans for cancer, imaging, surgery, women's health and etc.) that allow us to focus on improving our market share in the community. And, some of the Board members participate in on-going monitoring of our progress.

Our Board takes great pride in being part of our successes and challenges. And, the MGNT team knows that we have the full support from the Board in regard to our pursue of excellence.

I agree that the Strategic Plan is absolutely necessary. Get as much input as you can from all levels of workers: managers, coordinators, front line workers,... all of them have different perspectives and should be heard.

In todays's changing healthcare environment strategic planning will be the most important tool to afford a decisive direction to the organization, especially in context to maximizing the resource allocation to the appropriate issues.
I agree with all the others that a 3 yr. plan seems to be an appropriate term with re-visiting it annually and evalauating or updating it annually as well.
They really are lucky to have you on their board.
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