Methodist’s strategic plan: How it’s developed, and the important role you play

A message from Jeff Prochazka, vice president of strategic planning and business development

Since we’ve turned the page to 2024, it’s the perfect time to share information related to Methodist Health System’s strategic plan. I’d like to briefly provide how we got here, the goals of the plan and what you – our employees – can do to ensure a successful 2024-2026 strategic plan.

Developing the strategic plan

The first step in our process involved data. A diverse group of Methodist leaders took a hard look at national, regional and local market assessments to fully understand what’s happening around us. What are the current trends in medicine? What’s happening with our competition? What kind of challenges are we facing? We compared those answers to our previous strategy, then asked ourselves a hard question: Is what we have in place still working?

After thoughtful consideration, we believe the pillars that have been our foundation for many years are still the way to go. Our focus, however, is now more concentrated on setting goals. We asked ourselves: What within the pillars do we really want to pursue? Who do we want to be? How do we determine success?

This process isn’t a compilation of solely executive leadership voices. Strategic plan development involves our boards of directors from across the health system, leadership representation from our affiliates and physician leaders. We wanted and needed their input to be assured that our plan represents the entire health system.

Strategic plan details

So where did we land? The following strategic framework is what we’ll focus our efforts on for the next three years:

Investing in our people

We strive to be the best place to work, practice and receive care in our region. That means: 

• Strengthening and leveraging our culture
• Improving the engagement of staff and providers
• Integrating our system by sharing information
• Implementing innovative staffing solutions
• Demonstrating service excellence
• Creating a frictionless experience for customers

Enhancing our quality care

We want to ensure that our care is consistently excellent and safe across all services and settings. That requires:

• Leadership commitment, a culture of safety and robust performance improvement
• Improving performance through aggressive data utilization
• Sharing knowledge and leveraging our experiences to improve our processes
• Developing and completing service line-specific quality initiatives
• Enhancing chronic care management

Growing our anchor service lines

Our goal is to increase inpatient/outpatient market shares and primary care panel size. We’ll achieve it by:

• Expanding our primary care base
• Developing growth plans for each anchor service line
• Increasing access and enhancing referral relationships
• Remaining available for additional alignment opportunities
• Making consumer-driven process enhancements

Supporting future innovation

We need to generate a sufficient cash flow that sustains strategic growth initiatives. We can do so by:

• Making processes more productive and efficient
• Ensuring an effective and efficient cost structure
• Maximizing our revenue opportunities
• Ensuring that care is delivered at the most appropriate sites of services

Partner with our communities

We’re committed to addressing the needs of our communities and patients. We can accomplish this by:

• Being guided by our Community Health Needs Assessment
• Identifying and addressing social determinants of health with community partners
• Increasing the role that behavioral health plays in the care of our patients
• Improving organizational engagement in our sustainability journey

Plan implementation

Now that the road map is in place, the real work begins. Implementation really occurs at the affiliate level, and each affiliate location has developed its own strategic plan based on these pillars, as well as its own priorities, goals and process for measuring success. Affiliate leaders will be sharing additional information regarding their specific strategic plans in the coming weeks.

Unless we’re changing something – improving or enhancing – we won’t make the strides necessary for growth and success in our health care market. 

Your role in our success

I love the story of when President Kennedy visited NASA. It goes like this: President Kennedy introduced himself to a janitor, then asked what he was doing. The janitor said, “Well, Mr. President, I’m helping put a man on the moon.”

I share that as part of this message because it takes all of us at Methodist to make our organization a success. How you connect your role and the work you do every day to our strategic plan is up to you. We encourage you to share your ideas with your supervisor or email us your thoughts at @email. We would love to hear from you!

Every employee, regardless of their role or the department they work in, should be committed to improving the health of our communities by the way we care, educate and innovate. Take a minute. Review what I’ve shared and determine today what steps you can take to make Methodist the best health care system in our region.