SWOT Analysis for a Health Care Organization

1 SWOT Analysis for a Health Care Organization Organizational success is dependent on strategic management and proper resources management. It involves prioritization, refocusing energy, and establishing mechanisms to support strategic operations. The core purpose of strategic planning is to ensure that stakeholders and employees focus on activities that facilitate attaining organizational goals. Organizational management facilitates decision-making and ensures decisions are made around the projected results. Professionals conduct strategic planning with an in-depth understanding of organizational operations. It is a disciplined effort that generates fundamental decisions and actions to guide organizational activities. This paper highlights a comprehensive analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) facing the healthcare organization that leaders could use to support strategic planning. SWOT analysis is a strategic planning approach that organizational leaders use to identify areas of strength and weakness. SWOT is performed from an external and internal approach to reveal the metrics critical for performance and organizational success. It also uncovers untapped opportunities for organizational leaders to exploit.

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2 SWOT Analysis Strengths Strengths reflect the capabilities, resources, and investments that give the organization a competitive edge and propel its success. These characteristics help the organization to achieve the projected goals and outcomes (Gilligan & Lowe, 2016). The hospital boasts an experienced workforce of over 20 registered nurses and medical doctors working in shifts. These professionals provide high-quality service to patients. They also participate in critical decisions making and patient management at all contact points. The health facility also employs nursing aides to offer healthcare and support to patients. The hospital has also integrated technology into major processes. Technology provides an opportunity for transforming the organization by reducing medical errors, improving practice efficiency, and facilitating coordination. Technology also safeguards patient safety, thus improving satisfaction with care. The hospital's stakeholders responsible for maintaining technology are the health information technicians (Hussein, 2020).

These specialists use sophisticated software and knowledge to manage and organize medical and administrative records at the hospital.

The hospital also boasts of focused leadership and cultural connection, reflected by the diverse workforce. Cultural competence among health care workers provides a concrete ground to deliver unbiased patient care (Abedi et al., 2018). The hospital encourages innovation among staff members. Health care leaders encourage nurses to devise ingenious ways of delivering patient care and managing the flow of resources. The hospital is centrally located, making it easily accessible to patients. Another organizational strength is the team-based practice which ensures that service delivery and management are conducted from a multidisciplinary approach.

This approach helps develop workable solutions and avert resistance among staff members.

3 Weaknesses Weaknesses prevent healthcare organizations from performing at their optimum level.

These weaknesses may be a reverse or a lack of strengths (Abedi et al. 2018). For instance, lacking a marketing plan is a huge drawback for a hospital. It derails the organization from reaching a large client base. The other weakness is undifferentiated service lines. Poor differentiation of services makes service delivery cumbersome and hinders the projected results.

Another challenge facing the hospital is inadequate payment and claim procedures. Patients regularly complain of incorrect billing statements, while others complain about the inability to claim health insurance. Wastage of resources is also a massive challenge in the hospital. Failure to manage resources appropriately hinders service delivery and lowers service quality. Another weakness is the staffing shortage. Although the hospital employs many healthcare professionals, more workers are needed to adequately manage the large patient base. Inefficiencies, including high hospital readmissions and preventable medical errors, are also critical weaknesses in the organization. These weaknesses lead to resources and time wastage, thus making care delivery ineffective.

Opportunities Opportunities refer to favorable external factors that could give the organization a competitive edge. Since opportunities arise for situations outside the organization, hospital leaders must monitor current and future trends (Benzaghta et a., 2021). Pinpointing and exploiting opportunities make a huge difference in the organization's ability to compete in the industry. One of the opportunities the organization could use is the availability of new and more effective technologies. Integrating technology into practice streamlines operation and improves efficiency (Hussein, 2020). The other opportunity for the hospital is the absence of strong

4 competitors. The hospital can exploit this opportunity by setting up new branches, thus bringing services closer to the target client base. Venturing into new market segments could help maximize profits.

Further, the organization can broaden the services offered as a marketing strategy to attract more clients. Other opportunities include internships, training, and career moves that could help address the issue of a staffing shortage. Predicting patients’ needs is a valuable opportunity that hospitals could utilize. This move helps administrators identify and purchase the resources to serve patients better and minimize wastage. The hospital could also create teams to work on investment ideas and share the best experiences in specific areas.

Threats Threats are internal and external factors that could cripple the organization if proper mitigations are not implemented. These factors help leaders identify the organization's difficulties and develop effective strategies to address these challenges (Savinova et al., 2018).

One challenge facing the hospital is completion from major regional private facilities. Some organizations have more advanced infrastructure developments that could attract more clients, eventually depriving the hospital of major revenues. Another challenge is inflation which reflects a progressive increase. A high inflation rate could affect the hospital's financial resources and capacity to purchase crucial resources. The high cost of medical supplies will also contribute to high hospital service prices that could drive away clients.

High turnover is also a big problem for the hospital. The increased inflation has reduced the hospital's capacity to retain experienced resident doctors. These professionals are leaving the hospital in search of higher salary packages. Unforeseen emergencies are also significant threats to the hospital. These factors could affect operations and service delivery.

5 Organizational and Operational Outcomes if Changes are Based on the SWOT Analysis Making organizational changes based on the SWOT could increase the client base, streamline operations, improve patient satisfaction and enhance efficient resource utilization. For instance, integrating technology into operations helps the hospital’s administration track resource utilization and initiates the necessary adjustments in resource allocations. The hospital could also make structural modifications to improve its competitiveness. Further, the hospital could improve sustainability by venturing into profit-making innovations. Increased profitability would strengthen the resource base and increase the facility’s capacity to retain experienced doctors.

Potential organizational viability if changes are not made based on the SWOT analysis Failure to implement appropriate management and operation changes could lead to catastrophic outcomes for the organization (Akopova et al., 2020). For instance, inadequate resource management would contribute to resource wastage, increased operating costs, and high cost of care. If the hospital does not integrate technology into operations, coordination of functions would be affected, and care delivery would be delayed. Failure to share ideas would, in turn, affect care quality and slow decision-making at all management levels. The hospital might miss the profitability mark if it does not implement changes to enhance operations and increase profitability.

Strategic recommendations to enhance competitiveness in the health care marketplace Creating a seamless digital platform is one of the strategies that could help the organization achieve a higher competitive edge. Technology provides a platform to streamline operations and connect the organization with its client base (Akopova et al., 2020). The organization can also evaluate effective marketing channels to reach its target populations.

Proper marketing helps spread information quicker to the target base.

6 The organization can build engaging relationships through personalization. Healthcare is personal; hence, organizations should employ marketing strategies that integrate personalization.

Patient review management could help increase competitiveness. This approach allows the organization to identify patients’ needs and make accurate resource allocation plans.

Conclusion SWOT analysis is a crucial component of strategic planning that involves the identification of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats facing an organization.

Health organizations make and implement changes based on SWOT analysis to enhance efficiency and improve sustainability. Hospitals that fail to implement changes based on SWOT may miss their projected goals.

7 References Abedi, G., Soltani Kontai, S. A., Marvi, A., Mazidi, S., Abedini, E., & Abbasi Chaleshtary, A. (2018). SWOT analysis of health reform plan on healthcare sector from the stakeholder perspective. Journal of Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, 28(166), 199-212.

Akopova, E. S., Przhedetskaya, N. V., Przhedetsky, Y. V., & Borzenko, K. V. (2020). Marketing of healthcare organizations: technologies of public-private partnership. IAP Benzaghta, M. A., Elwalda, A., Mousa, M. M., Erkan, I., & Rahman, M. (2021). SWOT analysis applications: An integrative literature review. Journal of Global Business Insights, 6(1), 55-73. https://www.doi.org/10.5038/2640-6489.6.1.1148 Gilligan, C., & Lowe, R. (2016). Marketing and healthcare organizations. CRC Press Hussein, R. (2020). Medical informatics in the digital personalized health and medicine era: SWOT analysis and actionable strategies. In Digital Personalized Health and Medicine (pp. 869-873). IOS Press.

Savinova, O., Litvinova, T., Babaskin, D., Babaskina, L., & Udovichenko, E. (2018). SWOT analysis of the marketing environment of a private multidisciplinary clinic. Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Research, 10(7), 1863-1866. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327252927_SWOT_analysis_of_the_marketing _environment_of_a_private_multidisciplinary_clinic Schmets, G. (2016). Strategizing national health in the 21st century: A handbook. World Health Organization.