Ted, the director of strategic initiatives, has been tasked with moving the strategic initiatives established by the board’s strategic planning committee to goals and objectives. To accomplish this task, he has been meeting with each divisional chief. He had provided each division with the applicable strategic initiatives and asked each to provide its planned goals and objectives. Most responses have gone well, but a few are requiring more effort to finalize appropriate goals and objectives. His interactions with the head of the Department of Medicine have especially been problematic. Dr. Chou, a prominent physician and the chief of medicine, personally responded with the following “goals and objectives” for his department:

Strategic Initiative: Improve Patient Satisfaction

– Medicine Goal: Improve medicine patient satisfaction.

– Objectives 

1. Make patients more satisfied with nursing care.

2. Make patients more satisfied with food.

• Strategic Initiative: Improve Clinical Quality

– Medicine Goal: Improve medicine clinical quality.

– Objectives 

1. Have high-quality physicians with clinical privileges.

2. Increase patient safety among clinical care activities.

Ted has to decide how to respond to Dr. Chou’s memo.

Questions

1. What is good and bad about the proposed goals and objectives?

2. What form of communication might be best to handle this upcoming interaction?

3. Write an example of better goals and objectives for this area. What did you include?