As our strategic planning process transitions into the tactical planning phase, it’s important that all URAC staff understand our three-year strategic plan. To that end, I’ve sent a calendar invite for three separate dates for a lunch presentation on the strategic plan, to accommodate everyone’s schedules.

Please choose one date, as these are identical presentations to be held in conference room 417:

• Wednesday, July 26, 12 – 1 pm
• Wednesday, August 9, 12 – 1 pm
• Wednesday, August 23, 12 – 1 pm

If you are not available for any of these dates, please contact me directly for other arrangements.

As “professional students” of strategic planning since our respective entries into the healthcare industry, Kyl and I often take for granted that all members of the team intuitively know both what strategic planning is and why it is critical to an organization’s success. 

Strategy, integral to all businesses today, has different meanings to different people. At its most elementary level, strategic planning is an organizational management activity that is used to:

• Set priorities
• Focus energy and resources
• Strengthen operations
• Ensure that employees and other stakeholders are working toward common goals
• Establish agreement around intended outcomes/results
• Assess and adjust the organization's outcomes on an ongoing basis

While there is organizational “formality” to the strategic planning process on an intermittent basis (i.e. every three years), successful organizations recognize that their leadership and staff need to “work the plan” daily. Gone are the days when a five-year strategic plan sufficed. Given the pace of environmental and organizational change, strategic plan cycle times are dramatically decreasing.

In fact, the last item listed above defining strategic planning highlights this ongoing assessment and adjustment of the organization’s outcomes and suggests that there is no beginning and no end to the planning process. Rather, successful organizations plan, establish goals, execute, measure, and make course corrections along the way. Executed with rigor and discipline, an organization will achieve its stated goals. Once achieved, the development of a revised plan with new strategic goals and measures ensues.

As discussed in the May Newsletter, URAC’s Board approved the organizational framework of the strategic plan. In addition, the Board approved URAC’s revised mission and vision statements:

Mission Statement: To advance the quality of healthcare through leadership, accreditation, measurement and innovation

Vision Statement: To be the first choice in healthcare accreditation

URAC’s plan has been structured into four (4) key strategic goals to include:

• Adapt for Value. Defend, revise, refresh and grow programs.
• Build for Value. Enhance existing programs to reflect changes within markets/adjacent markets.
• Innovate for Value. The bold move, invent and create new demand in new markets.
• Create Durable Value. Improve URAC’s organizational effectiveness and the URAC customer experience.

The current phase of the process is the tactical planning stage. Tactical planning takes a step back from URAC’s strategic plan and establishes specific and measurable short-term actions and plans, typically by function or department.The tactical planning horizon is typically one year with well-established goals and measures. Taken over three years, a well-executed strategic plan is essentially the culmination of three one-year tactical plans that have been successfully implemented. 

URAC’s tactical teams include members from Pharmacy, Case Management, Government Relations, Marketing/PR/Communications/Sales, Standards Development and Planning. These Teams are convening bi-weekly, reviewing market data and industry material to support recommendations for inclusion in the final plan.  It is invaluable to have subject matter experts in the planning process. It is through this mobilization of internal resources that will drive staff engagement, inclusion, development of viable solutions around URAC’s future. 

We wish to extend thanks to those who have already contributed to the strategic planning process as well as to those who have volunteered to contribute going forward. Our clients and the customers they serve will benefit from our collective efforts.