Psychiatric Hospital Environmental Analysis

Conducting an Environmental Assessment of a Psychiatric Hospital In general, an environmental assessment is a strategic process used to identify the external and internal elements that will affect an organization’s performance, something that was not really required for the healthcare industry in the past. However the changing landscape of the healthcare delivery system in the United States (US), with its overly complicated structures, has made environmental assessments an absolute necessity for determining the viability of healthcare organizations [HCO] (Ginter, Duncan, & Swayne, 2013, p. 36). Peter Drucker, who is known as a business visionary and recognized for his contributions to modern management, states that business leaders should not be as focused on warding off crises, but rather, they should be engaged in anticipating them (Drucker School of Management, 2016; Drucker, as cited in Ginter et al., p. 36). The environmental assessment helps organizations foresee and plan for some significant negative events and capitalize on others. For contemporary healthcare leaders, this means being aware of changes in all areas of the external environment: politics, economics, social and demographic, technological, and competitive. Ginter et al. (2013, p.46) report that there are three components of the external

In the past two decades, McLean Hospital has broadened its service area with satellite programs located throughout the state of Massachusetts, and last year opened a high end treatment program in Camden, Maine. In the fiscal year (FY) 2014, the majority of patients, 49%, come from the metropolitan Boston area; 19% come from southeastern Massachusetts; 17% come from northeastern Massachusetts; 5% from central Massachusetts; 1% from western Massachusetts; and the remaining 9% coming from other US states or countries around the world because of the renowned reputation as a leader in delivering groundbreaking treatments (McLean Hospital,