Write a response to the following: $1.)$ Due to the rapidly changing healthcare landscape, strategic management processes are not just a choice but a necessity in healthcare today. The healthcare industry is transforming how healthcare is delivered, financed, and governed. Healthcare organizations must adopt strategic management processes to remain competitive and sustainable with the ever$-$increasing pressure to reduce costs and improve patient outcomes. Moreover, strategic management processes help healthcare organizations align their resources and capabilities with their overall mission and vision. They enable them to define and prioritize their goals and objectives and devise a comprehensive plan to achieve them. They also help identify potential risks and opportunities that may arise in the future and devise effective strategies to address them.

Furthermore, strategic management processes are crucial in facilitating effective decision$-$making in healthcare organizations. They enable healthcare leaders to make informed decisions based on accurate and timely data and evaluate the effectiveness of their decisions. By adopting strategic management processes, healthcare organizations can ensure that their resources are allocated in the most effective and efficient manner and that they are delivering high$-$quality care to their patients, thereby enhancing patient outcomes. $2.)$ Healthcare organizations need to incorporate strategic management processes when building guidelines for everyone to follow as they focus on stated goals. They allow everyone to work together as they try to accomplish what they are working towards. If hospitals utilize strategic management, it can possibly give them an upper hand against their competitors allowing them to gain revenue when others are losing due to the challenges of high cost of healthcare. When building strategic plans, they can$$t be based just on short$-$term goals, but they also need to include long$-$term goals that can promote financial budgets, innovation, and advanced technology, and focus on efficiency and effectiveness. Hospitals are just like any other business; they have to focus on reimbursements and revenue to be successful which is done through thoughtful planning and making adjustments as they are needed.

Strategic management processes in healthcare must be able to adapt to economic trends, government interferences, and advanced technologies to remain successful. It can also improve communications, employee engagement, and dedicated leadership. When healthcare organizations can understand all the moving parts and the overall big picture with the same goals in mind, it can lead to the success of the entire healthcare facility. With organizations implementing plans, it can help improve some of the challenging obstacles that healthcare organizations are currently facing such as staffing shortages, inequity of care, and low market growth. An important part of strategic management isn$$t just the implementation of strategies but also routinely evaluating them to ensure they are as beneficial to the organization as anticipated and are placed in an order of prioritized initiatives. $3.)$ Strategic management processes are crucial in healthcare because lives depend on the planning processes to be as accurate as possible to ensure needs can be met now and in the future $($long$-$term$).$ Short$-$term looks vastly different than the long$-$term, as well as when a company's future depends on its pre$-$planning strategies. A company could go under for poor planning. Also, when competition is still prominent through it all, they must plan their marketing and service line goals as well as how to achieve them. Lastly, it is very hard to predict the future as the economy has a huge undetermined role to play in all this both on the consumer side as well as the corporation side of things.

To further elaborate on areas where strategic planning needs to be done intricately, it all begins within the workplace environment such as staffing which determines units within a hospital that can be open or must be closed. Staffing regulations are non$-$negotiable. Financially, an organization needs to make sure it can stay afloat paying its debts while bringing revenue to expand the opportunities offered to the community. Next, having a plan at least drawn up ready to be executed in case another COVID happens, and it becomes a serious pandemic. Lastly, one's risk assessment of if they can't meet the demands or needs of the community and how much damage control can be absorbed and deferred.