Upper Level of HCO's

Upper Level of HCO’s
Upper level HCO’s and Lower levels are the same because, strategic planning is always needed. One of the responsibilities of upper- level management is strategic planning. Once upper-level management decides on a strategic plan, and then lower-level managers can imply the strategic plan through what is known as an operating plan. Failing the support of the strategic plan, falls on upper-level if this occurs the implementation will be impractical, and will be an overall wasted process. There are a few reasons there is a resistance to strategic planning, example, people don’t understand, there’s not enough time, and it doesn’t make any sense etc. To execute strategic planning the approach will depend on the organization and its management. In the past upper- level management has been unsuccessful so they have used the more bottom-up approach if needed. Setting up determined objectives that are difficult for lower-level mangers to meet, so in order to negotiate needs upper and lower management decide on a final strategic plan. This is how planning at upper-levels of an HCO is related to planning at lower-levels.

There are indeed two types of companies; those that work hard to set prices (Price Setters) and those that just tag along, take market prices and work hard to stay alive (Price Takers). Be it charging for perceived value to customers (Apple’s pricing) or charging to reach the mass market and keep out the competition (Amazon), they both have a well defined strategy and work hard to implement it.
Understanding fundamental economic principles and application may provide a foundation for health care resource allocation and management.
Economics is considered a social science as it describes how society addresses the dilemma of unlimited human wants and limited resources. A focus of economists is trade, or the exchange of currency for goods and services between buyers and sellers. Economic evaluation can be used to describe supply and demand phenomena and inform resource allocation decisions.
Health care economics is founded in economic theory, but it also has developed to understand and describe the behavior of health care seekers, providers, and organizations. in health care, it is not possible to produce and store the service for later consumption, as is the case, for example, with a supermarket. Rather, the manufacture of the commodity that is purchased and the consumption of that commodity occur at the same time.
Traditional economic theories suggest that a primary goal of a firm is profit maximization. To achieve wealth, organizations must understand market demand. The firm then determines the optimal price and output to maximize revenue that can be generated from the good or service to be sold.
Many in the hospital industry have been slow to realize the unintended, adverse impact of runaway price inflation on the uninsured. http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/25/1/45.full http://respiratory-care-sleep-medicine.advanceweb.com/Features/Articles/Foundations-of-Health-Care-Economics.aspx http://iterativepath.wordpress.com/2011/12/18/there-are-two-kinds-of-companies-price-setters-and-price-takers/