Pharmacy Strategic Planning: Key Concepts

• Nahda College offers a Pharmacy Program under the Department of Pharmacy Practice.
• The slides discuss pharmacy management, with a focus on planning in pharmacy operations.

Planning in Pharmacy

• Planning is effort taken by an organization to maximize future success and attain objectives.
• It's a management duty, a key function that supports the other three, and involves more than just managers at high levels.
• Planning activities include business, financial, operational, organizational, resource, and strategic planning.
• Key components involve understanding the purpose, assessing the situation, establishing goals, and devising methods to achieve them.
• Establish objectives that support progress toward specific goals.
• Define responsibilities and timelines for each objective.
• Communicate the plan.
• Monitor progress in meeting goals and objectives.

Strategic Planning

• Strategic planning is defining an organization's goals, determining the policies and programs (strategies) to achieve specific objectives, and establishing methods to ensure these policies and programs are implemented.
• The purpose is to ensure doing the right things now and in the future, distinguishing it from other types of planning focused on a long-term time horizon.
• Business Planning focuses on the feasibility of a specific program.
• Strategic Planning is an overarching effort guiding all types of plans and daily activities.

Vision and Mission

• Vision and mission are important in strategic planning to create momentum and motivate personnel.
• Strategic planning involves crafting an "organization story" communicated through various statements.
• A vision describes what the pharmacy organization wants to be in the future; it can be complex and multidimensional but must remain concise.
• A mission defines the company’s purpose and what it does in the present leading into the near future, serving as a document to give customers and employees a sense of purpose.
• The mission focuses on the common purpose.
• The mission not only conveys what but also how the company does it.
• An example of a mission statement: "to inspire hope, and contribute to health and well-being by providing the best care to every patient through integrated clinical practice, education and research.

Process of Strategic Planning

• Preplanning involves balancing cost and value, defining objectives, outlining procedures, determining stakeholders (depending on type/level of organization), deciding where it will occur, estimating time requirements, considering any political factors, and orienting the activity to the the vision.
• Planning
  • Start with the destination vision in mind, with a clear start point.
  • Determine multiple paths, accounting for resource constraints.
  • Identify key milestones to serve as a check.
  • Involve contributions from members.
• Post Planning Phase
  • Written and communicated effectively.
  • Implement the plan.
  • Monitor progress and access results.

Interrelationship

• To reach a vision, the organization must set and reach one or more goals via a specific strategy.
• Strategy can be defined by necessary intermediate objectives towards goals.
• A set of tasks may be associated with each objective.

Barriers of Planning

• Barriers include failure to commit enough time.
• Other barriers are interpersonal issues, lack of skills, planning too short term, constantly changing conditions.
• Lack of implementation, lack of progress monitoring, and insufficient support from top leadership can also be barriers also arise.

Limitations of Planning

• Planning is not a guaranteed cure for organizational issues.
• Planning depends on educated guesswork and involves risks amid potential negative events.
• Poor data will result in poor strategies.
• Planning is not a substitute for action.
• Planning should be a continuous process.

Situation Analysis (SWOT)

• Situation analysis (SWOT) helps in identifying the mission.
• Involves analyzing and defining current situation and past performance using performance measures.
• SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.

Organizational Structure

• Organization: Structured grouping of people working together to achieve common goals.
• Three key elements: human interaction, goal-directed activities, and structure.

Steps in Organizing

• Determine specific activities
• Establish a structure
• Assign activities and allocate resources
• Coordinate and evaluate results

Departmentalization

• Product departmentalization is organized based on the goods and services a company offers.
• Geographical departmentalization is organized by geographical regions within a country or, for a multinational firm, by region throughout the world.
• Customer departmentalization is organized by the different types of customers the organization serves.
• Functional departmentalization is organized by business functions such as finance, marketing, human resources, and production.
• Process departmentalization is organized by work processes necessary to complete production of goods or services.

Other Key Concepts

• Delegation: Assigning work activities to subordinates - including responsibility, authority, and accountability.
• Span of management: The number of subordinates a supervisor manages.
• Centralization: Retaining decision-making at the top of the hierarchy.
• Decentralization: Locating decision-making at lower levels allows enhances flexibility and responsiveness.Organizational Structures

Types of Organizational Structures

• Line Organizations are the oldest/simplest with a direct authority from the CEO to subordinates.
• Chain of command indicates directs activities and reports to whom.
• Line-and-Staff combines line departments (participate directly in decisions) and staff departments (lend specialized technical support).

Explore the core differences between strategic and business planning in pharmacy. Understand the roles of vision/mission statements and situation assessment. Learn to monitor progress and integrate new services effectively.