Liberating Structures in Strategic Planning: Methods to Foster Engagement.

This paper describes the innovative approach of using liberating structures to the development of the AUR 2023 strategic plan, and lessons learned in their application. The 2023 strategic plan built on the results and approach of the prior 2015 plan. Similar to the 2015 strategic plan, traditional tools such as a SWOT analysis and strategic retreat were used. In addition, the 2023 process included tools called liberating structures and was iteratively co-produced through a series of virtual meetings over 18 months. Advantages of liberating structures included increased creativity and speed in moving through meeting tasks, increased number of meaningful contributions from AUR members and increased engagement from participants during discussions and meetings. The 2023 AUR strategic plan is provided along with examples of completed goals and those under early implementation. Lessons learned from using these tools for strategic planning can be applied to other society and group meetings. Moving forward, the 2023 strategic plan will be a living document, which will be reviewed at each Board of Directors meeting and periodically adapted.

Understanding the connection between hospital goals and patient and family engagement: A scoping review.

The person-centered care movement has influenced hospitals to make patient and family engagement (PE) an explicit commitment in their strategic plans. This is often reflected in mission, vision, and value (MVV) statements, which are organizational artifacts intended to influence the attitudes, beliefs, and actions of hospital teams and employees because of their saliency in organizational documents and communications. Previous research has found that organizational goals for PE, like those articulated in MVV statements, can lead to effective and meaningful PE. However, a deeper understanding of how and under which circumstances MVV statements encourage and promote PE practices is needed. A scoping review was conducted to understand the connection between hospital PE goals (such as MVV statements) and PE processes and practices. The research question was: what is known about how hospital MVV statements relate to PE processes and activities? Following Arksey and O'Malley's scoping review approach, 27 articles were identified as relevant to the research question. These articles revealed five strategies that help realize hospital PE goals: communicating organizational goals; aligning documents that convey organizational goals; aligning organizational processes to support PE; providing employees with resources and support; and motivating and empowering employees to integrate PE into their work. We discuss the implications of misalignment between hospital goals and practices, which reduce team and individual motivation toward hospital PE goals.

Strategic Planning: Moving From Plan to Implementation.

Successful organizations depend on strategic thinkers who understand strategic planning and strategic management. These strategic leaders can proactively manage the constant environmental changes to position their organizations for a competitive advantage and avoid acting in a reactive and defensive manner. However, while organizations are often adept at developing extensive strategic plans, implementation of the plan is often poor or without a definitive strategy. This article addresses key strategies for successful implementation of changes to bring about sustainable cultural change in an organization to meet the organization's overall strategic goals, specifically through the use of implementation science.

Trends in The Importance of Amplifying Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Academic Health Sciences Libraries.

Formalizing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) principles and practices in health sciences libraries should be an organizational goal. Organizations should strive to build and sustain a culture of equity and inclusion in which diversity is integrated into their core operations. Health sciences libraries should design systems, policies, procedures, and practices that align with and support these principles in collaboration with partners and stakeholders that share these values. The authors used DEI terminology to search the websites of various health sciences libraries for DEI-related job posts, committee work, and activities as a source of information on the present level of DEI activity in health sciences libraries.

Serving organization goals by organizational information dissemination: An empirical study from the Communist Youth League of China.

From the perspective of news topic modeling, this paper investigated how the Communist Youth League of China (CYLC) uses organizational information communication to serve organizational goals-"Keep the Party Assured and the Youth Satisfied" (", "). Using the Latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) algorithm, we performed a topic analysis on 1898 news articles published on the CYLC website. We discovered that nearly all of the CYLC's news centered on the achievement of its organizational goals, reflecting the characteristics of information dissemination that is highly supportive of organizational objectives. We discovered distinct differences in the dissemination of organizational information between the central, provincial, municipal, county, and school league committees through cluster analysis. The various league organizations have distinct positioning and distinguishing characteristics. In addition, correlation analysis reveals that higher-level league organizations prioritize the dissemination of "Keep the Party Assured" information. While lower-level organizations gradually implement "Keep the Youth Satisfied" initiatives. This paper fills a gap in research on mass organizations in the field of information dissemination and serves as a resource for other political organizations involved in public information dissemination.

Words matter: Tracing the implicit meaning of diversity language (and its absence) in medical school mission statements.

Despite recent attention to social justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion within medical education, little is currently known about whether and to what extent that attention has translated into the language of formal documents articulating organization purpose: medical school mission statements. Mission statements are the marquee declaration of a medical school's identity and purpose, and a recommended tool for applicants to determine "fit" when applying. This study examines whether and to what extent social justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion have made it into the formal public statements of organizational purpose and identity over the last several years. Mission statements were extracted manually from the 2007, 2017, and 2021 AAMCs Medical School Admission Requirements (MSAR) database for both U.S. and Canadian M.D. granting medical schools. Then each mission statement version was coded for the presence and degree of diversity language including words like social justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion using an agreed-upon lexicon. Frequencies and within school changes over time were analyzed. Among 139 medical schools with discoverable mission statements from 2007, 91% (n=127) changed their MSs between 2007 and 2021. In 2007, 24% (n=33) of MSs contained diversity language. By 2017 nearly half of MSs; 47% (n=65) contained any reference to such language. But by 2021, despite 46 school having changed their MSs again, only a few more included diversity language in their MSs (56%; n=77). The most common terms used were "diversity," followed by the increasing presence of words like "inclusion," "equity," and "justice" by 2021. Curiously, a few schools redacted diversity language from 2007 to 2021. A Diversity Thesaurus of 22 terms was iteratively identified, with all terms searched in all MSs. Overall, mission statement change was quite common with most medical schools making changes across the 14 years covered in this study. And despite a doubling of the number of medical schools MSs mentioning diversity over a 10-year period, that increase seemed to slow in recent years even among schools who had a chance to change their MS. As of mid-2021, two in five US medical schools still have no mention of diversity related language in their most formal, said articulation of organizational purpose.

Nursing Strategic Imperatives: Engaging Nurses in Strategy Development and Execution to Drive Value.

Strategic plans provide a roadmap for value creation by outlining key priorities that, when executed successfully, enhance quality and efficiency. Nurses are uniquely positioned to inform strategic planning because of their understanding of clinical operations and consumer needs. This article describes a multiphase process for engaging nurses, at all levels, in developing, implementing, and revising a nursing strategic plan over a 5-year period.

Theoretical frameworks for project goal-setting: A qualitative case study of an organisational practice in Nigeria.

INTRODUCTION: Goal-setting in any practice context is vague unless the process is based on a framework that produces good goals. Popular goal-setting frameworks construct Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-bound (SMART) goal statements. Yet, research of how healthcare goals that are foundational to health plans are formulated is scanty. This case study explored the goal-setting practice of an organisation in Nigeria to discover the theoretical frameworks for setting the goals of their leprosy projects. METHODS: The study triangulated individual semi-structured interviews of 10 leprosy managers with a review of their project plans and a participant observation of the organisation's annual planning event. A five-stage thematic analysis was used to serially identify, code, and integrate goal-setting themes from the data collected. FINDINGS: This produced three final emergent themes: stakeholders, strategy, and goal statements, with 11 associated conceptual frameworks. All were further theoretically integrated into one general framework that illustrates the organisational goal-setting practice at the time of study. This revealed a practice with a four-staged linear centre-driven process that led to a top-down, problem-based goal formulation, and produced assigned project plans based on hierarchical non-SMART goal statements. CONCLUSION: Collaborative goal-setting process is proposed for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timed, and Agreeable statements of project objectives and aims written with Change, Beneficiaries, Indicator, Target, Timeframe and Change, Beneficiaries, Location, and Timeframe models respectively.

Dual Goals, Dual Agency: The Perils of Measurement and Control Comment on "Dual Agency in Hospitals: What Strategies Do Managers and Physicians Apply to Reconcile Dilemmas Between Clinical and Economic Considerations?"

This commentary to Waitzberg et al draws on the research stream on organizational goals in management to examine the findings they report, point out the correspondence of their findings and interpretation with existing theory, including development beyond it. Their work discusses these considerations very well. It also suggests paths to further theoretical development and proposes how their work demonstrate the potential for further research on multiple goals in hospitals. Such research will be important both for health policy and management and for management theory and practice generally.

Implementation strategies for high-performance health care simulation centres: A multicentre exploratory case study in China.

INTRODUCTION: The number of health care simulation centres (HSCs) in mainland China has increased exponentially recently. However, the performance of these centres varies significantly between hospitals. The aim of this study is to address two research questions: (i) what are the critical factors for implementing high-performance HSCs and (ii) how are these critical factors used in the development of implementation strategies to achieve satisfactory performance? METHODS: Following a literature review on information technology (IT) implementation, we identified a framework comprising four key dimensions for HSCs implementation: technology, organisation, environment and individuals. This TOEI (technology-organisation-environment-individual) framework was then used as a basis for a multicentre case study through which data collection and analysis proceeded. We collected 12 one-to-one in-depth interviews alongside secondary data from six high-performance HSCs in mainland China. RESULTS: Our study identifies critical TOEI factors that collectively influence HSC implementation performance and major activities at the six high-performance HSCs. Three strategies for implementing high-performance HSCs are also identified: facility management platform, education and training centre and innovation centre. CONCLUSIONS: HSC implementation is an holistic approach. The critical TOEI factors collectively build a foundation for centre activities. An HSC's implementation strategy highly relies on organisational strategic goals. Additionally, HSCs in mainland China face some common challenges such as faculty retention and future opportunities such as expanding the research scope. Our study also provides insights for hospital leadership, medical associations and policymakers.

Dispelling Magnet® Myths.

ABSTRACT: Organizations on the journey to Magnet® excellence have questions. In many cases, those questions are based on myth, not fact. In this month's Magnet Perspectives, we break down the most commonly asked questions, dispel the myths, and explore the resources available to help organizations get the answers they need to achieve Magnet® recognition.