Strategic planning, performance improvement and information systems for Quality Health Care

Strategic planning, performance improvement and information systems for Quality Health Care

Introduction

Planning is essential. The importance of planning can be understood by these words; “if you are not planning, then you are planning for failure”. Organizations that go operational need to carefully employ their resources, irrespective of their size and nature. They need to be more productive. Productivity is the sum of efficiency and effectiveness. Being efficient requires organizations making best and the most use of their resources in a timely manner that saves costs and gets the work done. The main resources of any organization whether it's operating for profits or not, is its human resource and equipment.

It all comes down to performance, no matter what business formula one applies, no matter how and who; the productivity itself speaks of the performance. Performance evaluation is a key activity for production managers. Performance of individuals and resources must be regulated at a specific time intervals, to ensure that everything is in the perfect order and most importantly to ensure that there are no deviations. Proper performance of resources is what makes a plan execute successfully.

Technology is now an integral part of any business organization. Information systems have now made organizations intelligent. Gone are the days when there was a saying that hard work pays. It's all about smart work now. Organizations are becoming smart, adapting to the new change and becoming more flexible. Information systems (IS) have made data management a lot easier for organizations. Apart from data management, certain activities pertaining to medical care have now been made more flexible and easy to perform. The change in technology has now made accepting this change a lot easier through user-friendly interfaces and learning, which comes from the proper performance evaluation.

In our discussion, we have focused on the importance of strategic planning, performance improvement and information systems for the delivery of quality health care and have also discussed how the three are inter related.

Health care is a very delicate issue. Patients expect quality services as they are paying high, implementing technological changes through information systems may cause resistance at an initial level as normally people resist change. Medical care units cannot afford to de track. All this makes it complicated, yet necessary for medical management.

Discussion

Strategic planning

Strategic planning involves forming strategies for decision making and for efficient use of resources. Resource planning and its proper usage are important for medical care units to be efficient in what they do. It helps an organization answer important questions like what they do, for who and how they should go about doing it, (Armstrong ,1986). According to a study, a public health nursing service requires careful application of strategic planning for specific situations, (Bryson, 1988). Organizations that deliver health services rely on strategic planning, like any other organization, whether operating for profits or otherwise. Decision-making is very essential here. Proper implication and most importantly available of proper machinery is essential as it's ...