Strategic planning: collaboration and empowerment

This article describes a strategic planning process for the redesign of patient care delivery based on a systems approach. The process included an assessment of internal hospital strengths and weaknesses matched with external opportunities and threats in the community that the hospital serves. An essential component of the strategic planning process was collaboration. Two types of collaboration emerged, interdisciplinary and intradisciplinary. The outcome of involving all disciplines in the hospital as well as multiple levels and roles within nursing was a comprehensive implementation plan based on the empowerment of the health care provider, health care recipient, and the health care system.