S.W.O.T

S.W.O.T. (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) When entering the business field it is of vital importance to have a strategic plan. Strategies may change and the plans will need to be updated in order to ensure that the business stays pertinent and that the business will continue to increase market share while continuing the business venture. Many have seen it time and time again where companies start out with a business plan refuse to tweak it in order to meet consumer demand and they eventually fall from being the industry leader that they once were (QuickMBA, 2011). The strategic plan needs to not be revised when the medical center reputation is in jeopardy. The Community South Medical Center is a great place for care for any medical condition you could have. The Community South Medical Center had a wide-range of health services, including acute care, residential care, independent living, in-home nursing, hospice, neonatal, and pediatric services, advanced cardiac services, a major trauma center, a center of excellence for pulmonary services, and a neurosurgery center. Even though they were advanced in all aspects of the medical field, they started seeing facility issues when the large, major businesses started leaving the area where they were located. Whether the businesses left or the competition got in there way is unknown; but the fact that their customer class was changing towards a predominantly elderly population and they were in need of new faculty was becoming a cause for concern. It is necessary for the Community South Medical Center to revise the strategic goals of the organization from three years ago and find a way to get the Community South Medical Center back on track. The strategic plan had not been revised for three years, so it was not addressing the countless things that had changed throughout the city where the Community South Medical Center was located. Because the businesses had moved and technology had improved this changed the position of the Community South Medical Center. When these things started it would have been an ideal time to revise the strategic plan and possibly turn things around before it was too late. This is the time that the CEO should be focusing on the issues challenging the Community South Medical Center and not waits to see if things will improve. The longer the CEO waits, the farther the medical center will get behind and become less pertinent in the medical industry. The new strategic plan for the Community South Medical Center should express the need for new faculty (Namac, 2011). The medical center is experiencing a shortage of clinical staff that is essential to their success. The medical center must find ways to attract and hire the most highly qualified and trained individuals that will help to give potential patients the momentum they need to visit this medical center the next time the need may arise. The Community South Medical Center had been recognized in the past by receiving a Baldridge Center of Excellence evaluation and a JCAHO (the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organization) more commonly known as the Joint Commission. This organization sets standards for and accredits healthcare organizations by striving to improve overall health care. It attempts to do this by evaluating health care organizations to see how they can provide services of the highest value and quality. Hospitals are evaluated for JCAHO compliance on the quality of care and safety they provide to patients. The medical center is having problems complying with the JCAHO compliance. Something like this should not be tolerated under any circumstances and needs to be corrected immediately. The medical center needs to find ways to budget for the upgraded information technology systems and the facility infrastructures. All of this can work together to create an environment that will attract the financial mix they need to achieve success. I would assign a person to be responsible for strategic direction, operational execution and profitability; provide day to day leadership and management to the hospital; responsible for the strategic development and implementation of clinical programs, referral network expansion, and corporate compliance; responsible for all of the hospital financial planning and analysis; responsible for the hospital business development activities, including sales and marketing training and market strategic planning; and responsible for the development, implementation, and support of our enterprise information systems strategy (Vibra, n.d.) which would make up my strategic management team. It was important to make sure to include all these executive members for the strategic management team, which can help the medical center get back its good reputation of providing excellence care and safety to their patients. The market trends that are currently being seen involved the movement of big businesses, as well as a change in the infrastructures that is hurting the medical center. The Community South Medical Center has already been affected and will continue to be affected with these market trends because it has hurt the strong financial mix that the medical center once had. The medical center can prepare for these market trends by finding ways to cope with the change and stress the fact that they can provide the excellent care that is needed. The medical center has the strengths in terms of customer satisfaction as well as the many years in business. The medical center has weaknesses dealing with the emerging technology and the market trends that are changing. The opportunity that the medical center faces is whether or not they want to stay relevant and re-invent themselves in a way that benefits the community. The threat that comes along with this is that if they fail it will, most likely be too late to recover and they will hurt their, once flawless, reputation more. All of these qualities are linked to the issues confronting the Community South Medical Center because they deal with the choices that the medical center needs to make and what will be effective when they make those choices. There are many different instances when in an organization’s strategic plan may be necessary. It is imperative that the right time and the right people are chosen to help on this delicate mission (Free Management Library (SM), 2011). The Community South Medical Center was once a flawless company that had no reason to think they would ever need to change things. Unfortunately, times changed and so did their customers. The Community South Medical Center was able to catch this catastrophe early on and the medical center should get back up on its feet with no problem and become the unstoppable, one stop shop for all medical needs before any problems arise. The strategic management team will be able to find a way to make and keep the medical center relevant in all matters and all competitions with the right method and paying close attention to the areas in which the medical center is lacking. The main reason why the Community South Medical Center ended up in the position they were in is because of the area where competition had devoured the major businesses in the area. The medical center’s reputation has been reinstated since the CEO has revised the strategic plan. References Buchbinder, S.B. & Shanks, N.H. (2011). Introduction to healthcare management. Sudbury, MA Jones and Bartlett Publishers. Free Management Library (SM) (n.d.), All About Strategic Planning, Retrieved from http://managementhelp.org/plan_dec Goldman, E., Cahill, T., & Filho, R.P. (2009). Experiences that develop the ability to think strategically. Journal of Healthcare Management. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. Lazarus, I.R. (2011). What will it take' Exploiting trends in strategic planning to prepare for reform. Journal of Healthcare Management, Retrieved from EBSCOhost QuickMBA (2010). The Strategic Process. Retrieved from http://www.quickmba.com/strategy/strategic-planning Vibra (2011). Management Team. Retrieved from http://www.vibrahealthcare.com/management