Operational and Strategic Plans in Nursing (Health, Medicine, Nursing Essay)

Operational and Strategic Plans in Nursing
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Operational and Strategic Plans in Nursing
The terms strategic and operational planning are interchangeably used in many articles with no clear distinction. However, the terms are distinct and should be in the right context in all academic journals. This essay highlights the differences between strategic and operational planning and their application in healthcare practice.
Differences between Operational and Strategic Planning
A strategic plan is a specific document that contains the long term objectives of an organization in the range of between 2-3 years ahead. In a strategic plan, the decision-makers sit and evaluate the current customer based on the competition and develop a plan of where they want the company to be. After that, the management decides on the best way to implement the strategy by providing the required human resource expertise and funding (Gleeson, 2018). The last part is the executive summary for a synopsis of the entire document (Lavinsky, 2013). On the other hand, the operational plan is the short and mid-term goals in milestones between every 3-6 months to assess whether the organization is tending toward achieving its long-term objectives. The operational plan acts as the day to day activities of the organization geared towards achieving the strategic goal that contains the vision, mission, and objectives of the organization (Houston, 2018). Additionally, the operation plan includes the qualifications of the employees, product or service quality, and a backup plan in case a given process becomes unrealistic to achieve (Markgraf, 2018). Therefore, the operational is part of the strategic plan, and it provides a medium through which unrealistic goals facing obstacles become revised on time to achieve long term goals.
Application of Operational and Strategic Planning in Health Care
The concepts of operational and strategic management are mandatory tools in achieving various healthcare goals and objectives. According to Zuckerman (2005), the plans are always useful as they state the specific objectives agreed upon by the administration in a time-bound, realistic, and measurable manner. The best global applicat...