When it comes to running a healthcare company, there’s a wide range of tasks to occupy your time. Especially if your healthcare business is mid-sized or larger, things can get a bit more complicated thanks to the fact that you have to manage a larger number of employees and clients. As such, it’s easier than ever to get overwhelmed with the day-to-day business operations necessitated by running your own healthcare business. That being said, running a healthcare company can be an incredibly rewarding experience since you’re helping others lead healthier lives and improve their quality of life and wellness with appropriate treatments and medical care.
One thing that you might not have thought about if you’ve been spending more time focusing on managing your daily business operations is finding a way to think more strategically about the future. Goal setting is an important part of any company, and the healthcare industry is no different. In fact, due to the agility that you need to operate and respond to patients’ healthcare needs in a timely manner, it’s even more critical to have an appropriate approach to long-term planning. This ensures that you don’t look up after several months in the trenches to realize that bigger goals you’ve had on your mind have passed you by. Whether you run a cancer center in Toms River, NJ, or are offering affordable nursing home care to senior citizens, there are plenty of ways that you can use goals to supercharge your business. Read on to learn more about goal setting strategies and how to audit your healthcare business to ensure that you’re using goals in the most effective manner possible.
Do you have an existing methodology or framework for setting goals?
While you might think that you’re getting the right goals for your healthcare business, it’s just as important to think about whether or not you’re using sustainable practices and goal setting methodologies to actually achieve those goals. A framework like OKRs can be an excellent way to align your work tasks and departments with the goals and priorities that matter most to you. OKR stands for objectives and key results, and while it’s likely that you’ve learned about the OKR framework if you have an MBA, you don’t need to be a graduate student or complete any college coursework in order to get the gist of how OKRs work.
At their heart, OKRs ask you to define an objective that’s important for your business to achieve and pair it with the key results that shape what success looks like should you reach that goal. For example, in a hospital, you may have the objective to lower the average length of a stay in your emergency room by 20 percent. From there, you’d need to decide what sorts of key results would help you achieve that overall OKR objective. Some behaviors that could contribute to reducing the length of stay might be ensuring that specialists see a patient as soon as they’re admitted or adding another surgery slot for same-day surgeries. Once you’ve figured out all of the key results that would help you achieve that specific goal, you can share the OKRs with other teams and help them work towards achieving the desired result. If this all sounds a bit confusing to you, it may be worth attending an OKR training program and receiving a certificate that proves that you have the experiences and organizational leadership skills necessary to use this new way of setting and tracking goals.
Are you investing in your business by performing appropriate maintenance tasks and updates?
While thinking about your internal operations is important to finding long term success, it’s just as important to find ways to keep your healthcare business running smoothly and functioning as designed. It doesn’t take a masters in sustainability to recognize that proper maintenance of your building and its systems is crucial if you’re in the private sector or running clinical trials for a new prescription. Through the lens of sustainability, it’s important that you invest some money and energy into keeping your place of business safe and secure. This may even involve tracking warranties on different equipment you use and getting annual inspections to ensure that your roof, HVAC, and other key components of your business are in proper working order.
Another area to pay attention to when it comes to effectively managing the maintenance tasks associated with your business is properly taking care of your outdoor space. Installing commercial retractable awnings, for example, may-be a great idea if, because of COVID-19 and social distancing measures, you have more people waiting outside before they can enter your building. The right installers can get you an awning that’s functional and stylish in no time at all. Best of all, awnings are appropriate for all sorts of climates since they can protect customers or clients from rain, snow, sleet, and even shade them from the sun. You may even want to talk to your retractable awning company about getting your business’s name or logo printed on your awning.
Have you defined what success looks like five or ten years from now?
Strategic planning involves a lot of details, and it’s important that you pay attention to long-term goals as well as short-term priorities. Obviously, it’s crucial that your short-term goals align with your long-term strategic planning if you want to create a sustainable future for your business, which is why it’s critical that you spend some time thinking about where you want your healthcare company to be five or ten years from now. Once you’ve set a clear goal, you can start working backward in order to figure out what steps need to be taken in order to achieve those sorts of outcomes. Especially if you’re interested in topics like social innovation or renewable energy, taking the time to look at your business ecology and what practices and policies will need to change in order to help you reach your future goals can be a valuable exercise in strategic planning.