Strategic Plans Employed by United Healthcare Network to Effect Healthcare Provision in the Future

Introduction

This paper focuses on evaluating strategic plans employed by the UnitedHealthcare network to effect healthcare provision in the country in the future. UnitedHealthcare is a UnitedHealth group operating division, and it serve as the US single largest carrier of health. This organization is an acknowledged leader in well-being and health industry. The organization aims at improving the effectiveness and quality of Americans healthcare, to improve health benefits access, to develop services and products that make healthcare to be more affordable and to utilize technology to ease the navigation of the health care system. This network involves 5700 hospitals, 80,000 dentists, 790,000 health care and physicians’ professionals (UHC.com, 2015).

Readiness to Attend Healthcare Needs in the Next Decade

The UnitedHealthCare is an extensive network which currently delivers innovative services and products to about 70 million Americans. This is a countrywide network that includes all hospitals in the United States. The network has been striving to enhance quality care delivery and its persistent improvement. The network has currently created essential investments in business process and technology improvement and in research and development. The group has invested about $3 billion in the last five years with intention of enhancing its services in the future. The group focuses on developing new technologies to handle health care issues facing the American population.

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The investment is aimed at enhancing the care administered and delivered across the whole healthcare industry. Therefore, the network has employed a number of measures that would help them to better their services and product in the future. The investment in research, development and technology is done to ensure that the network can handle complex medical conditions that have not yet been swiftly handled in this era. Therefore, the network has a plan for the future, which they have already started saving for, to ensure its success. The American medical community is currently experiencing a number of health care challenges especially with regard to terminal diseases which have already been listed in the group of the national killing diseases. Some of these conditions include cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases among others.  Therefore, the network is set to develop a mechanism to handle the current health care challenges in the country.

Strategic Plan for the Growth of the Network

The network involves hospitals, physicians, clinical officers, dentists and nurses among other medical care professionals. The inclusion of the employer and its employee is one of the strategies that the group has used to ensure continuous growth. The network is open for all medical facilities across America and thus, it stand as a requirement for all medics to be part of the group to fit in the industry.  The group has established a number of projects to enhance the life of medics who join the group. This include medical insurance for them, retirement benefits and many more forms of insurance benefits for the group members both hospitals commonly referred to as employers and medical professionals commonly referred to as employees. The benefits which include business insurance for the members both small and larger businesses are among some of the strategies the group has employed to attract more members. The benefit assured in the group attracts all medics in the region to ensure that they grow together with others.

Strategic Plan to Address Nursing Staff Issues

America has been experiencing the challenge of nurses’ shortage in it health care facilities for quite some time now. Although there is huge number of individuals interested in nursing, the nursing program in the country can only accept a small percentage of this group. This has highly facilitated the nurses’ shortage in the country. The network is involved in various programs employed to expand the nursing program where they are involved in the expansion of their training center to accommodate a larger number. In 2009, the group donated $2 million in aid for the nursing program in the country (Cruz, 2009). Beside the system inability to accommodate a huge number of interested candidates, the country is also experiencing acute nurses’ shortage as a result of most trained nurses preferring working in other industries other than in health care industry. Others still work in the industry, but prefer other nursing services such as school nursing and home nursing. This is basically due to the poor work condition in the nursing sector in most health care facilities.

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Nurses are currently working for longer hours with a high patient-nurse ratio, poor wages, and night shifts among other stressful conditions associated with their work. To encourage more nurses to stick into their field the network is working together with hospitals to enhance nurses working condition. Although some issues such as long working hours and nurses to patient ration cannot be easily solved with increase in the number of individuals working in the field, the group is doing its best to solve what can be managed. They are also pushing the hospitals to implement motivational programs to ensure that nurses that are in their hospital feel comfortable and happy. Hospitals with severe shortage are urged to outsource nurses from different parts of the world to ensure that the condition is harnessed.

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Strategic Plan for Resources Management

The organization has a number of resources which include information and finances among other things. To ensure effective information management and sharing, the group has developed an information resource center where any member can acquire any information regarding the organization and its members based on individual rights. This sharing of information has allowed the expansion of knowledge in the field. The group also receives a lot of finances from different projects offered by its members. This money is well utilized by assisting in improving the life of members. This includes giving them insurance, retirement benefits and other employees programs. The organization also takes care of one of its most valued resources that include hospitals and employees. This is done by training their members on how to offer good services, the best facilities to possess, enhancing good working environment, and empowering the members to ensure good services.

Strategic Plan Related with Patient Satisfaction

To ensure patient satisfaction, the group has done a number of things which include supervising their hospital members to ensure that the have the required facilities and human resources. They are also addressing the issue of nursing shortage to enhance efficiency. This will enhance nursing work environment and thus increasing the attention given to one patient. The provision of training, education insurance and information centers, serves to expand the medical professionals knowledge and thus increasing their ability to serve their customers effectively. All this serve a great deal in enhancing patient satisfaction.

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