For meeting the organizational objectives, vision and mission statements, companies need to develop strategic plans, which implies knowing the internal and the external working environment. The internal and external environmental factors that influence companies’ organizational strategy is called the SWOT analysis, an acronym standing for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (Deb, 2006).
For National Healthcare Centre of Urological Diseases and Transplantation organization the SWOT analysis identifies if the company has the strategy and resources to reach its objective and stick to vision, both comprised in its mission statement:
“Serve humanity with the excellence in providing valued services to the patients and respect employees’ integrity.” (Mission and Vision Statements of Health Care Centre, n.d.).
Strengths
The National Healthcare Centre of Urological Diseases and Transplantation offers excellent healthcare services, as the centre is equipped with relevant and high technology, for serving both the patients who can pay and the ones who cannot afford its services. This focus on serving equally the financially assured patients but also the ones who cannot pay represents the Centre’s main strength as a healthcare facility.
In addition, its expert team, formed of highly trained professionals and specialists in urological diseases, accustomed with the most recent medical practices in this field is another significant strength, which contributes to sustaining the organization’s objective of providing excellent services to customers.
Unlike other similar facilities, the National Healthcare Centre of Urological Diseases and Transplantation provides all the services, from analysis to treatment in a single unity. Hence, the integrated services is an important organizational strength, as it offers all the services in a single location, and the patients do not have to run across the city for various urological tests, diagnosis, etc.
Weaknesses
The healthcare environment is characterized by a stressful working process, which leads to employee burnout. This affects the quality of the work, leading to turnover, which ends in negatively influencing the patients’ wellbeing. The emotional distresses with which the employees confront represent the Centre’s weakness, along with the turnover rates, generated by the stressful working conditions. These weaknesses might impede the organization to meet its objective and mission statement.
The strategic planning should prioritize managing these weaknesses in order to eliminate the gaps in performance and loyally pursuing the organizational objective and its vision and mission statement.
Opportunities
The organization should face the challenges of the external environmental factors, for improving its services. Its current strategy of conducting research and adopting new technology for nuclear medicine for renal oncology patients (“Mission and Vision Statements”, n.d.) represents an important opportunity to diversify its services, serving more customers with more varied health problems.
Another significant opportunity to capitalize and maximize its resources is the donations that the organization receives. Managing these donations to benefit the employees will likely generate a less stressful working environment, addressing the high turnover rates that affect the Centre’s performances.
Changing the leadership style would imply an organizational change meant to reduce the employees’ stress and burnout by redefining the working processes that impose emotional change on the nurses and doctors.
Threats
The external conditions, such as the instabilities in the global economic and financial system might lead to fewer donors sustaining the Centre’s activity, minimizing its performances focus through technological research and innovations. Similar consequences can produce the paying customers’ focus on other urological and transplantation centres, leaving the organization solely with customers who cannot pay for their bills.
For addressing the high turnover rates, which is the organizational weaknesses of the Centre, the organization should work on the identified opportunities, such as changing the leadership style and better marching the donations for creating a harmonious workplace. For addressing the identified threats, the organization should focus on the creating a sustainable treatment (Davies, Gordon & Davies, 2014), which to target the paying but mostly the un-paying clients. Unsustainable treatment is a service problem, which the organization should immediately consider in its strategic planning. Once they pass through the healing process, the patients should be guided on a personal planning meant to avoid the disease to return. Indications on the corresponding alimentation, rest and activities that should be avoided or recommended should be measured, with the clients providing a monthly report on these points. Like this, instead of focusing on treating and healing the same patients for the same urological problems, the organization could concentrate its effort on further research and development, despite the economic context.
These actions would address the Centre’s objectives, vision and mission statement, but also its service strategy, creating a working place wherein employees would be less stressed and more involved in the decision making process, which would improve the quality of the services.
The National Healthcare Centre of Urological Diseases and Transplantation would benefit from an organizational change, meant to change its leadership style and further redesign the working process for reducing the employees’ emotional charge and stress that generate the high turnover. The performances gaps resulted from the turnover would decrease as the satisfied employees would better address the patients’ needs. However, this strategic plan might face resistance to change barriers. A focus on developing sustainable treatment and healing plans would reduce the rate of returning un-paying customers, allowing the institution to further focus on research to improve the quality and relevance of its services strategy. The sustainable services should be an issue incorporated in all health care facilities, for addressing the redundant costs across the industry.
References
Davies, P.D.O., Gordon, S.B. & Davies, G. (2014) Clinical tuberculosis. Fifth edition. Boca Raton: Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
Deb, T. (2006) Strategic approach to human resource management. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers & Distributors.
Mission and vision statements of health care centre (n.d.) Prior assignment.
