Phase One: Strategic Situation Assessment

The Strategic Situation Assessment laid the foundation for the strategic planning process. This phase encompassed assembling and validating an accurate fact base on which to build future recommendations and eliciting input and opinion from all key stakeholders. Phase One provided the Steering Committee with an understanding of existing institutional strategy, market assessment and outlook, and opportunities, risks and challenges. The committee reviewed this information and developed guiding principles that shaped the mission, vision and strategic priorities for the institution. Phase One encompassed four distinct tasks:

• Interviews of more than 60 members of the leadership team, administrators from all three mission areas, the practice plan and medical staff, the schools and the health system.
• Review of existing institutional strategies to establish a continuum between past and future plans.
• Review of national trends focusing on access to care and payment models, faculty practice and care delivery, health-care reform at the local and state levels, research and education, and high-level case studies of the experiences of peer organizations.
• Completion of an updated market assessment

Health care environment challenges

• Transformative developments in biomedical science
• Traditional sources of funding for research and teaching activities decline
• Fundamental change in care delivery and payment models
• Development of new care models causing providers to broaden their focus from "sick care" to prevention and wellness
• Academic medical centers required to take care of an older and more chronically ill population