Evaluating Strategic Planning as Intervention Tool for Improving Healthcare Delivery in Private Hospitals in Ojodu, Lagos

Abstract

The Nigerian healthcare sector is currently faced with various incapacitating problems making universal health coverage difficult and the healthcare workforce being poorly managed. In a bid to manage these problems effectively, it has become pertinent, more than ever, for healthcare managers to resort to use of strategic management tools to improve the overall health status of the teeming population of Nigeria as these tools have been proven effective in other non-health industries. This study, therefore, examines the influence of different aspects of strategic planning like facility planning, professional improvement planning, manpower planning, health services planning, and customer service planning on different components of healthcare delivery like patient safety, waiting time, medical staff retention, the effectiveness of health services, people-centeredness, and equitable service delivery. Cross-sectional and random sampling techniques were adopted to administer 123 copies of the questionnaire to a population of 178 managers of private hospitals in Ojodu, out of which 111 copies were validly filled and returned by the respondents representing a 90.24% response rate. Simple regression analysis was adopted to analyze the six hypotheses of this study, and the results showed that they were all statistically significant at a 5% significance level. Based on the findings of this study, it is concluded that strategic planning is a valuable tool that can be used to improve healthcare delivery in private hospitals. The study, therefore, recommends that managers of private hospitals should be trained in the use of strategic planning tools in order to fully exploit the benefits inherent in the strategic planning processes. Keywords: Healthcare delivery, Hospitals, Intervention, Strategic planning.