COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTERS - THE THIRD PRACTICE - Write an Action Plan

COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTERS - THE THIRD PRACTICE - Write an Action Plan

Yesterday we reviewed the practice of effective community health center Executive Directors in asking the question: Is This the Right Thing for Our Center and Our Patients? Today, let’s take a look at the practice of Writing an Action Plan:

Write the Action Plan

Effective community health center community health center executive directors are doers; they execute. Knowledge is useless to them until it has been converted into effective behaviors and deeds. However, before springing into action, the effective community health center executive director needs to plan the course. The community health center executive director needs to think about:
1. Desired results
2. Probable restraints
3. Future revisions
4. Check-in points
5. Time expenditure implications

Define Desired Results

First, the community health center executive director defines desired results by asking:
1. What contributions should the community health center expect from me over the next 18 months?
2. What results will I commit to?
3. With what deadlines?

What Are The Restraints?

Then the community health center executive director considers the restraints on action:
1. Is this course of action ethical?
2. Is it acceptable within the organization?
3. Is it legal?
4. Is it compatible with the mission, values, and policies of the community health center?

Affirmative answers will not guarantee effective action, but violating these restraints does make it wrong and ineffectual.

Note that the action plan is a statement of intentions, not a straight jacket.

Check Results

Also, action plans need to create a system for checking the results against the expectations. Finally, the action plan has to become the basis for the community health center executive director’s time management. Time is the community health center executive director’s scarcest and most valuable resource; and, community health centers are inherently time wasters. The action plan will prove useless, unless it’s allowed to determine how the community health center executive director spends time.

Without an action plan, the community health center executive director becomes a prisoner of events. Without check-ins to re-examine the plan as events unfold, the community health center executive director has no way of knowing which events really matter, and which are only noise.

Next post: COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTERS – Taking Action - The Fourth Practice – a. Taking Responsibility for Decisions