ASSESSMENT OF DIRECTIONAL STRATEGY

The most essential forms of directional strategy include organizational vision, mission and values. The role expected to played by organizational mission, vision and values on the success of the organization, according to the principles of directional strategies will be used to review the mission, vision, and values statements of the Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital. The mission of the Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital which is under Dignity Health, and is located in West Nevada, defines its mission as one that upholds commitment to “furthering the healing ministry of Jesus” (Dignity Health, 2014). Also, the hospital’s mission involves “delivering compassionate, high-quality, affordable health services; serving and advocating for our sisters and brothers who are poor and disenfranchised; and partnering with others in the community to improve the quality of life” (Dignity Health,2014).

The hospital’s mission as part of its directional strategy fits its environment considering that the Sierra Nevada Memorial hospital is a small rural hospital that serves about 80,000 residents, a large percentage of whom live in poverty and are illiterate. In this regard, the Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospitals vision is fitting for the organization’s environment and is observed to recognize the need for a multidisciplinary approach to the delivery of healthcare services. Also, the vision statement addresses the components of a directional strategy because it paints the picture of what the organization will look like once it has achieved its objectives. It is important to consider that a vision statement is a declaration of organizational ambition and purpose that is oriented toward the future.

Therefore, while organizational mission may describe the organization’s reason for existence, a vision statement lays down what the organization wants to become (Wright,2007). The vision and mission statements thus serve fundamental roles including the development of measurable objectives and goals which are to be applied in assessing the success of organizational strategies, informing the development of strategies and communicating the purpose of the organization to its stakeholders. An assessment of the Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital’s gap between its desired outcome and the actual state of the current environment reveals that there is a wide gap between the targets of the hospital regarding the provision of affordable and high-quality care services to its service area because of variety of challenges including understaffing.

Being a rural hospital, the Sierra Memorial Hospital faces significant challenges in raising funds to finance the recruitment and retaining of experienced employees and thus faces high turnover in addition to having an inadequate number of employees in comparison to the 80,000 individuals in its service area (Bauer, 2002). The hospital’s mission to improve the welfare of the poor and disfranchised is also severely compromised by the fact that a large proportion of its clientele can hardly meet medical expenses. For instance, more than 50% of the organization’s customers depend on Medi-Cal to pay for their care needs (Dignity Health, 2014). The hospital also depends heavily on its foundation and on outpatient services to finance its operations. K. , Bontis, N. , & Taggar, S. A model of the impact of mission statements on firm performance.