Every type of practice should complete medical strategic planning. Creating this plan helps you determine the future of your practice and allows everyone involved to understand the goals of the group. When it comes to creating an anesthesia practice strategic plan – this is something that many groups rarely, or never do. However, it can be helpful in understanding:

1. Where your practice is now
2. Where the practice is going
3. How you are going to get there

Creating an Anesthesia Practice Strategic Plan

Process Overview

Creating an anesthesia practice strategic plan is a collaborative process. You should work with the anesthesiologists within your group as well as your practice management or billing provider. These outside partners will be able to arm you with insightful metrics both from the anesthesia market and within your own practice. This data will allow you to make informed and realistic decisions about the future. Working together you should:

1. Establish a baseline of where your practice currently stands
2. Determine goals that are both short term (1-year) and long term (5-years)
3. Create an action plan to provide a path to success

Consider which key performance indicators (KPIs) you want to keep an eye on that can quickly and easily indicate if you’re making progress.

Elements of an Anesthesia Practice Strategic Plan

If your group has never created a strategic plan before, it can be hard to figure out where to start. Here’s a quick review of all of the elements that should be included in a strategic plan.

1. Mission statement: This is the overarching goal of what you want the practice to be and can provide a general tone or philosophy for the group. It will define a clear vision of where the group should be if the strategic plan is completed. Consider who you want to serve (patients, surgeons, health systems, etc.), what the core values of the group are, and what types of principles will guide the group.
2. Vision statement: This statement will establish how you are going to achieve the mission statement and outline where the group is headed.
3. SWOT analysis: SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. By taking the time to address the current state of the practice, you can determine what types of internal or external factors will positively or negatively impact the group. With these four areas identified, most groups look to how they can fix weaknesses, pursue opportunities, avoid threats, and leverage strengths.
4. Discuss key issues: The discussion of key issues will vary for every group depending on the results of the SWOT analysis. Many groups take this opportunity to discuss geographic coverage; relationships with other groups, hospitals, or providers; local threats and how they can be avoided; internal issues like operations, compensation; etc.
5. Develop objectives and strategies: Establish objectives that align with your mission and vision statements and determine the actions or strategies needed to achieve them.
6. Create an action plan: Lastly, create an action plan to get things done. Think about what must be done, who will do it, how much it will cost, the benefits it will provide, and when it will be considered “finished.”

Keep in mind that many of your goals will be long-term works in progress. Don’t get overzealous when planning. Make sure there are adequate resources to achieve your goals, and if there aren’t, then the goals will be slightly modified. Since the goals are long term, make sure to include regular reviews as part of the action plan. You don’t want 6 months to go by to simply realize the nothing has been done to make progress.

Remember, most of your goals will be long term works in progress.

Work with a Partner for Medical Strategic Planning

If you’re an independent anesthesia group and have never created a strategic plan before – don’t worry, you’re not alone. To create an effective plan, we recommend working with a partner, like Fusion Anesthesia. We can deliver critical metrics about your practice’s operations that demonstrate how you’re doing now. We can also create reports to help you track your progress as you move into the future. We also work with over 400 anesthesiologists across the country, so we have a lot of insight into the anesthesia market. This allows us to provide useful guidance on the types of goals and KPIs that are most important to indicate your practice’s success.