The Strategic Planning Process: Objectives, Tasks, Timelines, and Task Leads 
An important step of the strategic plan is to identify key tasks that must be performed; the timeline 
completion dates, and the responsible person or task leads. Completed tasks will lead to a final completed 
functional process that meets the requirements in the strategic plan. For this module, you will assign a Gantt 
Chart Lead that will solicit input from the team and will prepare a detailed task chart for your project topic 
completion and its implementation. You may use the Excel Spreadsheet provided to you in the course, or make your own. 

What is your team strategic plan Gantt chart? Discuss and complete your plan Gantt chart. 

Team Project: Accountable Care Organization (ACO) Risk Management Strategic Plan CASE: The ACO Integrated Delivery System
Assume you are the CEO of a large, clinical, operational, and health information management technology-intensive hospital that includes two other smaller community hospitals and a wide range of primary and specialty care physicians and other providers working in private practice in a medical service community of 500,000 population.
The Market

Currently, your hospital is paid by Medicare—the federal insurance program for the elderly and disabled—under the Medicare Severity Diagnostic Related Group (MS-DRG), part of the inpatient prospective payment system (IPPS) and under Ambulatory Payment Classifications (APC) under the outpatient perspective payment system (OPPS). These payments are fixed amounts for every admission or every outpatient service to your hospital. The IPPS and OPPS are cost-based systems that pay based on the severity of the patient’s needs for inpatient and service groupings for outpatient. Physicians and other professional providers in your community are paid under the Resource-Based-Relative-Value-Scale (RBRVS), which is a fee-for- service system. The federal government has just made an offer to your community to form an ACO that could accept an annual capitation payment per person eligible for Medicare in your service area.

Current ACO Market Payer Mix
Hospital Payer Mix Physicians Payer Mix
-Medicare 55% -Medicare 45%
-Medicaid 15% -Medicaid 5%
-Managed Care 25% -Managed Care 35%
-All other 5% (Private, Liability, Workers’ Comp.) -All other 15% (Private, Liability, Workers’ Comp.)

Based on a preliminary assessment and analysis, the hospital Finance Department has demonstrated in a pro forma that the total revenues from the ACO Capitation offer would exceed or equal the current hospital costs under MS-DRGs and exceed or equal payments under the APC and RBRVS reimbursement programs. Based on a hospital survey, you have 95% positive support for the ACO from community physicians and ancillary care providers. Your Hospital Board has agreed to accept the Medicare offer for ACO capitation and to be the lead organization of the community ACO, but only if you create a strategic plan that brings both hospital and physicians in alignment with necessary cost and quality-of-care objectives in order to manage the health care and cost risks.

Necessary ACO Core Competencies:

The ACA is a separate business entity, a requirement. It will accept the capitation payments and pay the hospital and providers for their services under the Medicare IPPS, OPPS, and RBRVS reimbursement systems. Additionally, there will be performance bonuses (Pay-4-Performance) (P4P) to the facilities and physicians that managed their patient’s care well and met performance standards.

Use the outline I have pasted below to help you.
This is what you need to answer:
The Strategic Planning Process: Objectives, Tasks, Timelines, and Task Leads 
An important step of the strategic plan is to identify key tasks that must be performed; the timeline 
completion dates, and the responsible person or task leads. Completed tasks will lead to a final completed 
functional process that meets the requirements in the strategic plan. For this module, you will assign a Gantt 
Chart Lead that will solicit input from the team and will prepare a detailed task chart for your project topic 
completion and its implementation. You may use the Excel Spreadsheet provided to you in the course, or make your own. 

What is your team strategic plan Gantt chart? Discuss and complete your plan Gantt chart. 

The Needs Assessment
Needs assessment is an organized process for determining and attend to needs, or difference between existing circumstances and required circumstances or wants. The need can be a requirement to advance existing performance or to correct a deficit. The aim of the hospital is to offer services to patients hence to know the needs of the customer, several methods can be used for example using the existing data, performing the attitude survey to know how they feel about the services and asking the elders of the community and the decision makers who have great knowledge about the population (Altschuld & White, 2010). 
The need of the hospital is to reduce its operating cost and reduce discrimination while offering services the needs of the patients are; faster services, quality services, affordable services and specialized services because some of them are disabled and old. 
Mission Statement
The current mission is to deliver timely and compassionate medical services to our patients and their families to the highest possible standard through the provision of qualified staff and appropriate equipments. The mission statement says that we are in a medical business, we offer medical services and we serve the community it does not mention how unique we are ( futures, 2009). It should address the discrimination and technological need; it is the role of the hospital to ensure that there is no discrimination in offering the service and to embrace technology for effective and low cost production.
The role differs in that other organization offer medical services but we offer the services to all people. Our stakeholders are the customers, workers and the shareholders and we should respond to everyone’s needs equally and in time (Alberta, 2005). The hospital’s philosophy is equality and the core values are respect and equity. The mission is not out of date in that it considers up-to-date technological equipments. I would like to propose a change that is the mission should include up-to-date equipments and mention equity and respect to all and mention its aim of reducing operation cost to ensure charges are low and affordable.
Vision
Forming an ACO (Accountable Care Organization) Integrated delivery system that will allow hospitals, primary physicians, specialty physicians, and private practice to accept an annual capitation payment per person eligible for Medicare in your service area. 
Purpose
The Purpose is to establish an ACO (Accountable Care Organization) Integrated Delivery System. That will combine the federal insurance programs for hospitals, primary physicians, specialty physicians, and private practice in our community network.
Assessing Readiness for Strategic Planning

Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT Analysis)
What are the strengths that will contribute to organizational success? What weaknesses exist affecting your organizational success? 
1. Decrease the number of federal insurance systems.
2. Puts hospital in a strong capital position
3. Lower cost may require
1. New Training required 
2. System updates 
3. Old employees may leave or retire as instead of learning the new system.

What opportunities may your organization create? What threats are there to your organization’s success?
1. Increase patient intake 
2. More financial/billing jobs3. 1. Increase governmental regulations
2. Increase capital

Plan Objectives

Short Term (0-6 months) • Needs Assessment
• Achieve 100% approval from community physicians and ancillary care providers
• Community system selection
Intermediate (7-24 months) • Establish core values and procedures to assure quality healthcare and cost risk objectives.
• Establish cost benchmark
• System implementation (go live)
• Train physicians and staff on new system 
• Create a performance bonus system that evaluates the hospital and physician 
Long Term (2-5 years) • Update glitches in the system
• Quality assurance
• System re-evaluation