Write a 6–7 page critical appraisal of an organization's strategic plan from the perspective of a nurse executive, taking into consideration the organization's mission, vision, and other contextual factors.
For this assessment, you will appraise an organizational strategic plan, develop a departmental strategic plan, and propose a quality improvement initiative, respectively. The choice of healthcare setting as the context for this work is up to you. You may choose the organization in which you currently work, an organization in which you worked previously, or an organization about which you would like to learn more. You will use this healthcare organization, and a department or division within the organization, as the basis for the remaining assessments in this course.
Note: The assessments in this course must be completed in the order presented; subsequent assessments should be built on both your earlier work and your faculty’s feedback on earlier assessments. If you choose to submit assessments prematurely, without considering and integrating your faculty’s feedback, your assessment may be returned ungraded, resulting in your loss of an assessment attempt.
Note: For Flexpath learners, if you choose to make revisions based on feedback from a previous attempt, you should highlight your revisions in yellow. For example, if you made revisions from attempt one and would like faculty to review the content when grading attempt two, the content needs to be highlighted. Therefore, faculty reviews only the content highlighted on attempts two and three. If the entire paper is highlighted, the paper will be returned ungraded and will count as an attempt. Track changes are not a substitution for highlighted text.
After choosing your organization, obtain a copy of the organization’s strategic plan. Most large health systems post their strategic plans, visions, and missions on the Internet.
If it is helpful to you, below is an example of how you may format your balanced score card table.
| Domain | Objectives | Metrics | Target for Metrics | Initiatives |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Financial | What is your objective for this domain? | How will you measure if you achieved the objective? | What is your target number for the metric? | What initiative will help you achieve your objective? |
| Customer | What is your objective for this domain? | How will you measure if you achieved the objective? | What is your target number for the metric? | What initiative will help you achieve your objective? |
| Internal Processes | What is your objective for this domain? | How will you measure if you achieved the objective? | What is your target number for the metric? | What initiative will help you achieve your objective? |
| Learning and Growth | What is your objective for this domain? | How will you measure if you achieved the objective? | What is your target number for the metric? | What initiative will help you achieve your objective? |
Instructions
Before you get started, please watch the following video:
Write a critical appraisal of the organization’s strategic plan. Identify strategic priorities and orient yourself to the key performance indicators (KPI) the organization uses to drive quality. Include the quantitative metrics of the scorecard.
Note: Lessons learned from your appraisal will inform your work in subsequent assessments in this course.
Appraisal Format and Length
Format your document using APA style.
- Length: Your appraisal should be 6–7 pages in length, excluding the title page, references page, and appendix.
- APA Format: Use the APA Style Paper Tutorial [DOCX] to help you in writing and formatting your appraisal. Be sure to include:
- A title page and references page.
- An abstract and running head are not required.
- Appropriate section headings.
- Additional Information: In addition to an introduction with a thesis statement and a conclusion, use the following section headings to format the body of your paper to ensure thorough content coverage and flow.
- Strategic Plan Analysis.
- SWOT.
- Validity of Data and Analytical Strategies.
- Stakeholder Input.
- Balanced Scorecard.
- Nomenclature: Please save the document you are submitting for grading using the following format.
- Lastname, First name – Assessment 1 Attempt #
Evaluation
The following tasks correspond to the grading criteria in the assessment rubric, so be sure to address each point. Read the performance-level descriptions for each criterion to see how your work will be assessed.
- Select an organization and analyze their strategic plan.
- Analysis of strategic plan.
- How well do the priorities align with the mission and vision of the organization?
- What priorities appear to take precedence?
- Analysis of strategic plan.
- Approach your SWOT analysis from a systems perspective at a macro level.
- Perform a SWOT analysis taking into account both internal and external key elements.
- Include a four-part grid of the SWOT quadrants as an APA properly formatted figure within your paper.
- Provide a description of the SWOT analysis.
- Evaluate the validity of data and analytical strategies used to develop organizational priorities.
- What data was most likely used to develop key performance indicators (KPIs)?
- For example: patient satisfaction data, 30-day readmission data, other internal performance indicators or external regulatory measures.
- What was the source of the data?
- For example: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), internal data, public health data, financial data.
- What data was most likely used to develop key performance indicators (KPIs)?
- Explain how input from stakeholders might have been elicited and incorporated into the development of strategic priorities.
- For example, strategic priorities can be developed by the board of directors, elicited from employee focus or patient advocacy groups, or derived from a combination of these approaches.
- You may need to interview an organizational stakeholder for this information. If this information is unavailable to you, identify the stakeholders you would approach for their inputs.
- Create a balanced scorecard for an organization.
- Use four standard balanced scorecard domains: 1) financial, 2) customer, 3) internal processes, and 4) learning and growth.
- Include quantitative measures for each domain.
- Are the organization’s strategic priorities balanced, or do one or more priorities receive more emphasis than the others?
- Include the scorecard as an APA properly formatted appendix.
- Use four standard balanced scorecard domains: 1) financial, 2) customer, 3) internal processes, and 4) learning and growth.
- Articulate meaning relevant to the main topic, scope, and purpose of the prompt.
- Write with a specific purpose and audience in mind.
- Adhere to scholarly and disciplinary writing standards.
- Proofread your writing to minimize errors that could distract readers and make it more difficult for them to focus on the substance of your appraisal.
- Apply APA formatting to in-text citations, references, figure, and appendix.
- APA formatted citations and references for a minimum of six scholarly references.