Strategic Planning: Communication Plan

Strategic Planning: Communication Plan

Communication Plan for the Action Plan of the Cook County HHS Surgical Department

A communication plan is a vital part of the implementation of a strategic plan since it’s heavily reliant on the commitment and input of several individuals who need to be informed and involved in the entire process starting from the initial stages up to when results will be generated. In this context, it is mandatory that a communication plan is formulated for several reasons: creating engagement, generating broad input, providing an update of progress and testing assumptions (Torppa & Smith, 2011). It will provide clarity on the relationships which exist between information, audiences and communication channels. Strategic Planning: Communication Plan

A communication plan will identify and raise awareness on the long-term benefits of the organization’s initiatives to patients, staff working in the surgical department, patients and the hospital. In the case of implementing the action plan for Cook County HHS, the key purpose of the communication plan be to assist in identifying the audiences which need to be reached, convey the information that they ought to receive and how they will receive it. This is attributed to the fact that, each of the audiences impacted in the action plan has special characteristics, motivations, and needs. Therefore, each of these audiences has to be communicated to in the most effective way. Strategic Planning: Communication Plan

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Communication Strategies To Be Utilized

The communication plan will be guided by a purpose statement that will be aligned to the strategic goal. This is a useful way of remaining committed to what is hoped to be achieved with it. Therefore, it will act as a reminder and reference for all stakeholders involved in the implementation of the action plan (Wolf & Floyd, 2017). At the introduction part of the communication plan, a brief outline of what the surgical department does, its function, staff and how it operates will be provided. It will also include the communication strengths of the organization, more so the surgical department through a SWOT analysis. This will closely be followed by the objectives of the surgical department alongside communication objectives. In this section, the overall vision and aims of the surgical department will be listed and suggestions on how communication can help to deliver these goals will be outlined.

Verbal and visual communication strategies will broadly be utilized to communicate with different audiences. Verbal communication will be in the forms of oral and written forms through e-mail, chats, phone calls, face-to-face conversations, and video chats. The audiences that will be communicated to in this form are internal and external stakeholders. Internal stakeholders comprise of the nurses and doctors working in the surgical department (Millado, et al., 2017).  External stakeholders include international organizations and agencies that have partnered with the hospital to improve the quality of surgical care given to patients by the hospital. Visual communication strategies will be specific for use among internal stakeholders. In this, web pages, signs and illustrations will be used for documentation (Elmes & Barry, 2017).  Nurses and doctors will be required to prepare and share certain visuals on how effective communication promotes high-quality surgical care during the weekly continuous medical education sessions for the surgical department.

How the Communication Plan Addresses the Achievement of the Strategic Goal

The strategic goal of the surgical department of Cook County HHS is to provide patients with high-quality surgical care by upholding standards of excellence in interprofessional collaboration, timely communication regarding patient care, culturally competent care and continuous training and education of staff on the significance of effective communication in different areas of clinical surgery. Similarly, the communication plan aims at ensuring that all staff in the surgical department know and understand the expected standards of care, provide patients with the platform to communicate their needs to the organization to meet the requirements of culturally competent care and to regularly gather feedback in ensuring that the necessary standards of support and care are met. Therefore, the communication plan is vital in ensuring that the surgical department will be able to achieve its strategic goal. Strategic Planning: Communication Plan

Leadership and Managerial Skills In Implementing The Communication Plan

The implementation of the communication plan will require a mixture of different managerial and leadership skills.  They include conceptual skills, technical skills, human resource skills, conceptual skills, conflict-resolution skills, decision-making skills, and interpersonal skills. Human resource skills and interpersonal skills prove the ability of an individual to relate with stakeholders (Millado, et al., 2017).   Conflict-resolution skills prove one’s ability to solve any conflicts that may arise between stakeholders during the implementation process. Similarly, decision-making skills will be used to facilitate decision-making processes, especially when faced with dilemmas during the process of implementing the communication plan. Democratic leadership skills will be the most essential in this case since it will create a conducive environment where all stakeholders involved in the implementation of the communication plan can share their thoughts, opinions, and ideas in achieving the strategic goal (Ulmer, Sellnow & Seeger, 2017).

References

Elmes, M., & Barry, D. (2017). Strategy retold: Toward a narrative view of strategic discourse. In The Aesthetic Turn in Management (pp. 39-62). Routledge.

Millado, K., Tick, M., Awan, S., Burstein, D., Mitchell, J., Bochert, J.,  & Barbour, A. (2017). Improving plan of care communication between primary resident teams and nursing staff.

Torppa, C. B., & Smith, K. L. (2011). Organizational change management: A test of the effectiveness of a communication plan. Communication Research Reports, 28(1), 62-73.

Ulmer, R. R., Sellnow, T. L., & Seeger, M. W. (2017). Effective crisis communication: Moving from crisis to opportunity. Sage Publications.

Wolf, C., & Floyd, S. W. (2017). Strategic planning research: Toward a theory-driven agenda. Journal of Management, 43(6), 1754-1788.

Strategic Planning: Communication Plan