Looking for a situational analysis example in healthcare? Below, we have developed one for the medical industry.
When organizations seek to better understand their capabilities, their customers, business environment as well as their internal and external environments, they go for situational analysis. Among the most popular types of situational analysis is a SWOT analysis.
As part of a business plan, it should be used for strategic planning and should be reviewed frequently to ensure it is up to date and relevant to current realities. Situation analysis can be written for any type of business. This includes those in every sector such as telecommunication, healthcare, transport, industrial and many more.
Since we want to provide you with a sample, we’d focus on the healthcare industry. Here, we’ll be focusing on key indicators of growth that include strength, weakness, opportunities, and threats.
Situation Analysis Example Case Study
Under this section, we’ll be more focused on providing you with a sample SWOT analysis of patient services in a hospital. Now, there are different departments within the hospital, each contributing to its overall functioning.
We’ll be providing situation analysis of departments such as the patient affairs office, the emergency department, the complaints office, ward administrative unit, and the referrals office.
i. Patient Affairs Office
This hospital department can also be called the customer services department and has to do with taking customer complaints and making sure their needs are fully met. Customers should be able to walk in and feel at home and comfortable with the way they are treated. The SWOT analysis for this department should be something like this;
-
Strength
The patient affairs department is being run by a group of professionals with extensive experience in customer relations. Their excellent communication skills enable them to make patients feel at home as they cater to the specific needs of such patients.
-
Weakness
Not all the staff working in the patient office are experienced. Some interns are working to gain experience on the job.
However, this has affected smooth operations to a certain degree. Such interns have to refer to certain cases to the more experienced professionals who may be overburdened with work. This contributes to slowing down the delivery of quality customer service.
-
Opportunities
Opportunities exist in the form of training and courses. These are ongoing and seek to equip service providers to further gain the needed skills in line with changing trends to enable them to remain at the top of their jobs.
-
Threats
With the establishment of more hospitals come increased competition. This has also resulted in the demand for skilled patient affair representatives. As such, our hospital needs to ensure we remain highly competitive to stave off competitors from taking over.
ii. The Emergency Department
All emergency healthcare cases go through this department. It is a vital part of hospital operations that caters to critical conditions and manages such round the clock until patients are in stable condition.
-
Strength
The emergency department of the hospital is fully equipped with a wide range of machines which ensures all the critical needs of patients are fully met. This is in addition to highly skilled medical personnel ranging from physicians and nurses etc.
-
Weakness
The most pressing problem has to do with a shortage of manpower to cater to the needs of patients. There’s a staff deficit that is felt more by available staffers as they have to shoulder more responsibilities than they’re meant to handle.
-
Opportunities
There are opportunities for improving the available manpower in the emergency department. One of such includes vital partnerships with reputable medical schools for internships. This won’t only solve the short term problems of understaffing but also solve the long term needs when such interns are fully trained.
-
Threats
There’s an aging workforce of physicians who will soon be retired without an adequate supply of others to replace them. This is likely to create serious problems shortly if nothing is done to stem this tide.
iii. The Complaints Office
Whenever customers have complaints or problems, the complaints office is the department to approach for such problems to be fully addressed.
-
Strength
The complaints department is headed by experienced administrators who coordinate its operations. Such operations are computerized with patients’ complaints being logged into the computer to not only address such but also avoid repeating the mistakes that resulted in such complaints.
-
Weakness
Patience among staff has been lacking lately within the complaints office. This has led to a rise in customers being dissatisfied with the way their complaints are resolved. This has to be fixed immediately to avoid causing further problems.
-
Opportunities
There’s an opportunity to improve on the quality of services being offered in the complaints office. We’ll be addressing such through a retraining program that will be an ongoing process. This seeks to improve the skills of our employees in handling our esteemed patients’ complaints.
-
Threat
The complaint departments of other hospitals are better run than ours. This trend, it continues, is likely to lead to a gradual loss of our patients and customers.
iv. Ward Administrative Unit
Wards are managed by the administrative units. This important unit of the hospital coordinates all admitting roles to ensure patients’ needs are adequately met.
-
Strength
The strength of the ward administrative unit lies in the efficiency of its workforce. These coordinate all activities to ensure the wards are kept ready and neat for use. They operate like clockwork with a dedication to their duties.
-
Weakness
Innovation is lacking in the way the ward administrative unit operates. Employees hardly come up with new ideas to make such operations even more efficient.
-
Opportunities
There are ways to improve the operations of this important department. Professionals will be brought in to come up with ways of bettering the services currently provided.
-
Threats
New and more efficient ways of better serving our patients must be developed to remain competitive. Without this, we’ll be losing our edge, and eventually our patients to other hospitals with better and superior services.
This is a situational analysis example. We have focused on the healthcare industry by focusing on the hospital and its various departments. The same can be done for all types of businesses. It is a very important tool that helps assess current performance with the aim of re-strategizing for improved performance.