Strategic direction for health services includes a set of conceptual, operational and

indicative plans developed by senior managers of the various health services for their
organizations and is therefore often part of the curriculum of undergraduate and
postgraduate courses. for healthcare providers and administrators . The strategy to
follow is usually valid in the medium term, usually no more than 5 years. 1 In many
countries, strategic planning is a valued management tool for healthcare provider
organizations, and the models used typically differ from those of factories and other
businesses.

Generally and in its most simplistic form, the strategic plan for health services includes
the criteria for the organization's daily decision making and, unlike traditional planning,
provides the template used for evaluating procedures and operations necessary to reach
correct decisions. The strategic planning development process is based on the vision of
the future state of the organization and its strategic apex is its coordination or direction.
2

Little is known, even in terms of empirical logic , to what extent healthcare

organizations carry out formal strategic planning or to what extent strategic planning
affects health management performance. In regards to both structural contingency and
complexity science , the value of strategic planning bifurcates into different
interpretations. Contingency theory emphasizes adaptation to make the organization
adjust to a changing environment and, based on this, appreciates strategic planning as a
way of charting the organization's path. Complexity science argues that planning is
largely useless in changing environments.

Content
[ disguise ]

 1 History
o 1.1 Latin America
 1.1.1 Regulatory planning
 1.1.2 Ten-year plan
 1.1.3 Health policy formulation
 1.1.4 Strategic approach of the decade of the '80s
 2 Mission and Vision
 3 Strategic health plan
 4 Methodology
o 4.1 Strategic management
 5 Quality strategy
 6 See also
 7 References
o 7.1 Bibliography
 8 External links

[ edit ] History
[ edit ] Latin America
In Latin America , health planning has evolved in a gradual process from a normative
vision in the 1960s to strategic thinking applied to planning, characteristic of the 1980s .
This paradigmatic change and strategic approach is represented by three authors:

 Situation planning: Proposed by Carlos Matus at ECLAC , in 1968 . For this

approach, planning is an instrument at the service of man to control events and
their course, and at the service of governments to improve the capacity for
governability . Reality unfolds on three levels:
o where the events occur.
o where the actors who live them are located.
o where are the explanations that the actors give to the phenomena.

Planning occurs in three modules or moments:

 explanatory: where the causes of phenomena are sought.

 action: where missions and commitments are created.
 operations and plans: where the previous two materialize.

 Strategic thinking: proposed by Mario Testa in the CENDES/OPS method, year

1962 . 3 The center of the strategic problem is power as the liberating capacity of
the population. Planning is developed in two aspects: political (distribution of
power) and strategic (ways of putting power into practice). To achieve planning,
there must be full coherence between the political purposes of the state, the
methods applied and the actions of organizations or institutions (this
requirement is called the Principle of Coherence ). In conclusion, strategic
planning is not just defining an objective to achieve but a complex social process
that revolves around defined political objectives.

 Strategic approach: Proposed by a group of professors from the National Faculty

of Public Health of the University of Antioquia in Medellín - Colombia . This
approach determined the actions of the Pan American Health Organization (
PAHO ) for more than 20 years. In this approach, planning must be linked to
economic and social development, making approaches and methods more
flexible to adapt to specific circumstances and actively incorporating the
population.

The argumentative center is the SPT/20004 goal and its main strategy is primary care .
The planning object is “population spaces”: complex historical, economic, social,
cultural-demographic spaces, immersed in a larger social context. The main
characteristics of this approach are: coherence with the national style of development,
the social system understood as a power struggle, the plan and the options as a result of
the negotiation of powers, the need for administrative transformations for the
development of the plan, the participation of all social actors in the planning and
execution of plans and the leading role of evaluation.

[ edit ] Regulatory planning

Based on the context of the developmental proposal ( Alliance for Progress ) that
emerged after the 1961 ministerial meeting in Punta del Este , Uruguay , planning
appears as a response and necessity for the demands of economic and social
development that would allow countries underdeveloped countries reach the level of
first world nations. A premise of this conception of planning is that science is the
guiding idea, based on the precepts of economics ( scarcity of resources and efficiency )
and positive science with the isolation of the planner with the object to be planned,
reality is objective. , social problems follow laws and theories with known causalities,
the objective of planning is the control of reality , in the face of an objective reality
there is only one possible solution – the most efficient one. 4

From the above, it is concluded that the social and health system is considered as a
closed system , independent of the context and subject to the laws of scientific causality.
The manager in health services, then, is a leader with great technical, scientific and
economic ability. There is no link between the planner and the decision maker, usually a
political administrator, with an underlying normative logic: "Whoever can command,
commands and whoever cannot command, obeys." 4 This fact, finally, is the cause of the
failure of this proposal. [ citation needed ]

[ edit ] Ten-year plan

The crisis of the developmentalist idea, the expansion of social movements in Latin
America and the failure of normative planning led to a rethinking of planning. Thus,
after the III meeting of ministers ( Santiago de Chile , October 1972 ), the Ten-Year
Plan was formulated, where objectives were established for the decade 1971-1980 in
accordance with the reality as it is known in each country and on the Continent. , with
the possibility of achieving them and with the development and economic trends. 5 The
universal right to health and coverage in health services is recognized, even in rural or
marginal areas. The contributions of this plan to the conceptual and practical
development of planning occur on the basis that the health system is part of a social
whole (not closed), requiring the integration of all related institutions.

Health planning guidelines, therefore, must include the political. Additionally, the
participatory planning proposal appears.

[ edit ] Health policy formulation

The failure of regulatory planning deepened with the fall of socialist governments (e.g.
Salvador Allende in Chile ) and the rise of multiple bureaucratic-administrative
regimes, and the deterioration in Latin American economies due to the increase in
external debt and oil prices. In response, in 1975 , the Pan American Center for Health
Planning ( CPPS/PAHO ) prepared the document “health policy formulation”, where
the intention of paradigmatic change is appreciated:

The multiple interrelationships between the health sector and the rest of the social
environment were then discovered. The social environment and the health sector are
complex, and with the incorporation of new sciences and optics it is discovered that
there are several ways of seeing problems and multiple solutions. There is no unicausal
determination in social phenomena. The state is complex and is continually modified by
power groups and individual interests. Therefore, planning exists in a complex
environment with permanent tensions; it is not a linear or prescriptive process.

[ edit ] Strategic approach of the 1980s

As a result of the previous process, a different way of approaching planning is
discovered. The recognition of the complexity and indeterminacy of social problems
leads to uncertainty as the main characteristic of the new paradigm, "it is impossible to
predict the future", there is no certainty of not making mistakes either in the definition
of the problems or in the selection of the appropriate responses to these. Thus, planning
is configured as a mechanism to reduce levels of uncertainty in societies. Modern
planning is a political, rational act aimed at the future.

[ edit ] Mission and Vision

One of the basic functions of the local teams of the governing areas is to propose local
health policies, for which there is a need for the existence of reliable and timely
information, useful for the implementation of policies, as well as input in the processes
of planning. 6 It is through an effective mission statement that organizations, including
those dedicated to public and private health services, summarize their objectives and
principles of operation, from which they draw their team's policies. 7 Such a statement
establishes the general purpose of the organization, for example:

The British Hospital of Buenos Aires, founded in 1844, is a non-profit public good entity,
dedicated to improving the level of health of people and providing high quality medical and
hospital services, within an ethical and commitment framework. with society.
Official website
British Hospital of Buenos Aires

A "vision statement," meanwhile, describes in graphic terms where the management

team sees events unfolding in 15 or 20 years, if everything works out exactly as
expected. While a mission statement provides immediate guidance, a vision statement
inspires. For example, part of the vision of the Marqués de Valdecilla University
Hospital includes:

To be the first option for hospitalization and specialized care for the Cantabrian population. The
technical quality, the comfort of its facilities, respect for the autonomy and privacy of its users,
and the collaboration with family doctors and other community care services will be the basis of
its assessment.

Many strategic planning models are based on the mission and vision of the organization.
Even with the transformations in global health, the vision of a health provider
organization can be articulated with its long-term vision. In fact, strategic planning can
be a tool for the organization's staff to understand its mission and objectives, although in
some cases the mission is confused with the strategy. 7

[ edit ] Strategic health plan

Diagram of a strategic planning model based on the organization's mission.

As for any company, the strategic plan for health centers is usually qualitative, that is, it
describes the organization's objectives in measurable terms. The strategic plan is also
temporary, framed in specific and explicit time intervals. 8

In this sense, health planning is an administrative process and not a purely

epidemiological one whose purpose is to decide what you want, where you want to get
to in a given time, the actions that will be taken, the means that will be used and the
individuals that will be involved. They will be responsible for getting where we want
and achieving the organizational objectives of the future in a more effective way. 9
Emphasis is placed on the need to constantly update strategic plans, achieve the
participation of doctors and the administrative council of the organization, and integrate
strategic plans with other plans of the organization, using protocol elements that
correspond to the "should be" as well as strategic elements such as "being able to be", in
an expectant and anticipatory attitude that allows the creation of future, intermediate
and final situations that would correspond to the desirable objectives for the
organization. 10

In such planning, it is essential to create improvement strategies, such as programs,

projects, plans and health activities aimed at improving the health conditions of the
communities, improving the quality of care and dignifying the function of professionals
and health centers. health. It is planned with the aim of reducing uncertainty based on a
better knowledge of reality and the forecast of what may happen if some situations
continue. Planning has a lot to do with reality, it implies permanent decision-making
and, after they are executed, follow-up is carried out, creating commitment to
improvement. 10

Often, at a collective and social level, difficulties arise in defining the objectives, means
and provision of these, that is, to clarify what public health planning is.

Strategic planning is generally used as a resource to guide organizational efforts,

encourages investor participation and commitment, and leads to the achievement of
strategic objectives.

[ edit ] Methodology
Strategic planning is often valued by managers and administrators for the effective
functioning of organizations, including healthcare organizations. eleven Strategic planning
is typically taught in graduate health administration programs, often within courses in
general management, operations management, strategic management, or marketing.
New developments, especially in strategic planning methodologies and tools, are
presented at meetings of professional associations and other executive education
centers.

There is wide variation in the way healthcare organizations plan strategically. Some
integrate the strategic planning function with marketing , others assign responsibility to
a planner, and others spread responsibility for strategic planning among the senior
management team.

[ edit ] Strategic management

Many authors consider the SWOT Analysis or SWOT the most used strategic tool par
excellence to know the internal and external characteristics of the organization (this
includes health services or the Pharmaceutical industry) and encourage the adoption of
successful practices in the hospital organization. This strategic planning methodology is
known as "strategic management" and allows us to focus on the most critical or relevant
aspects of the situation analyzed, as an evaluation. 12

The internal situation, focused on the organization's vision, is made up of two

controllable factors: strengths and weaknesses, while the external situation, focused on
the organization's mission, is made up of two non-controllable factors: opportunities and
threats. The SWOT analysis allows the creation of matrices that interrelate the two
situations or environments. 13 14

This planning tool was popularized in the 1960s and 70s based on the ideas of General
Sun Tzu and allows in a more or less systematic way to determine the situational
analysis and the strategy to follow for an organization based on its possible risks and
potentials.

There is little standardization in the way healthcare organizations do their planning, and
it is unclear whether strategic planning leads to performance or market advantages. As
with many management practices, evidence on the effectiveness or value of strategic
planning has not yet been demonstrated.

Opportunities and threats, that is, the external environment, are usually evaluated in the
long term. The strengths and weaknesses in the medium term and, between the two,
short-term operational planning designed in an annual operational plan is carried out. So
strategic planning cannot be done in 1 year or 3 years, but perhaps in 10 years or more.

[ edit ] Quality strategy

Quality as a strategy is a priority imperative in current health management. The quality
of the result is focused both on the efficiency of the service and on a favorable change
in the natural history of a disease when treated by health systems and services. fifteen

[ edit ] See also

Health Management
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation , search

Health administration or health administration is the social and technical science

related to the planning, organization, direction and control of public and private
organizations aimed at the care and promotion of health , through the optimization of
financial , technological and human resources. The health or health care administrator is
considered a health professional, from the management point of view.

This science is also known as: health management, health management, health systems
management, health care network management, health business administration, health
services administration, health services management, public health administration ,
public health administration, hospital administration , clinical administration, medical
administration, etc.

Content
[ disguise ]

 1 Labor field
o 1.1 Private sector
o 1.2 Public sector
 2 Education
 3 See also
 4 References
 5 External links

[ edit ] Job field

A health administrator carries out his work mainly in institutions and management areas
linked to the health field; His rank is equivalent to that of a general manager , within a
company in the health sector . [ citation needed ]

[ edit ] Private sector

See also: Business administration

 Private clinics
 Insurance companies
 Pharmaceutical consortia
 Health management consulting
 Companies marketing biological inputs
 Consulting and advisory companies
 Health providing entities (EPS)
 Private daycares
  Private hospitals
 Specialized medical institutions
 Clinical laboratories
 Chemical-pharmaceutical laboratories
 Non-governmental organizations (health NGOs)
 Clinical networks

[ edit ] Public sector

See also: Public administration and public health

 Health centers
 Public clinics
 Public daycares
 Public hospitals
 National Institutes of Health (INS)
 Public health ministries
 International cooperation organizations
 Non-governmental organizations (health NGOs)
 Public health policies
 Programs (national, regional and local)
 Projects (national, regional and local)
 Hospital networks
 Social health security
 National Health Services (NHS)
 Healthcare systems