Deck 2: Understanding and Analyzing the General Environment and the Health Care Environment

Question 1

Discuss the process of assessing environmental change.

Answer 1

Assessing environmental change is a process that is largely non-quantifiable and therefore judgmental. The assessment process includes evaluation of the significance of the extended (forecasted) issue on the organization; identification of the issues that must be considered in the internal analysis; development of the vision and mission; and formulation of the strategic plan. However, even when exposed to identical issues, different managers may interpret their meaning quite differently. Interpretations are a result of a variety of factors including perceptions, values, past experiences, and context.

Question 2

Organizations will find themselves out of touch with the needs of the market when they:

A)Fail to anticipate change.
B)Ignore external forces.
C) Resist change.
D)All of the above.

Answer 2

D

Question 3

Forecasting environmental change is a process of extending the trends, developments, dilemmas, and events that the organization is monitoring.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

Environmental scanning is perhaps the least important part of environmental analysis.

Question 5

Once strategic management is adopted as the operating philosophy of managing, strategic thinking, strategic planning, and managing the strategic momentum require frequent validation of the strategic assumptions to determine whether issues in the external environment have changed and to what extent.

Question 6

Provide at least two examples of changes in the general environment affecting multiple industry environments
(sectors of the economy).

Question 7

An example of a question that IS NOT relevant to determining if a health care organization needs environmental analysis is:

A)Have previous strategic plans been scrapped because of unexpected changes in the environment?
B)How large is the strategic planning staff and what is its budget?
C)Is competition growing in the industry?
D)Do more and different kinds of external forces seem to be influencing decisions, and does there seem to be more interplay between them?

Question 8

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is:

A)A health maintenance organization (HMO).
B)Part of the US Department of Health and Human Services.
C)A regulator of certificate of need (CON) laws.
D)A provider of electronic medical record (EMR) services.

Question 9

One of the specific goals of environmental analysis is:

A)To measure organizational efficiency.
B)To develop a list of "one-word" descriptions of the external environment.
C)To ignore minor competitors.
D)To provide organized information for the development of the organization's internal analysis, mission, vision, values, goals, and strategy.

Question 10

The four fundamental processes of environmental analysis are:

A)Asserting, seeing, seeking, and meeting.
B)Thinking, planning, checking, and doing.
C)Scanning, monitoring, forecasting, and assessing.
D)Detecting, guessing, measuring, and implementing.

Question 11

Which of the following is an example of a societal change that may affect the success or failure of health care organizations?

A)Changes in consumer attitudes and expectations about health care.
B)Health care reform.
C)Increasing use of electronic medical records (EMR).
D)Patent expirations of brand-name drugs.

Question 12

Identify and provide an example of the five segments of the health care system.

Question 13

The fundamental nature of strategic management requires the awareness and understanding of outside forces and encourages strategic managers to:

A)Adopt new ideas.
B)Maintain receptivity to new ways of doing things.
C)Expose themselves to a broad view.
D)All of the above.

Question 14

Strategic issues are trends, developments, dilemmas, and possible events that affect an organization and its position within its environment.

Question 15

What are some of the practical limitations of environmental analysis?

Question 16

Organizations and individuals within the health care environment develop and employ new technologies, deal with changing social and demographic issues, address legislative and political change, compete with other health care organizations, and participate in the health care economy.

Question 17

Health care organizations DO NOT have to cope with change in which of the following areas:

A)Competitive.
B)Economic.
C)Weather.
D)Legislative/political.

Question 18

The monitoring function is the tracking of issues identified in the scanning process.

Question 19

A successful health care organization must:

A)Wait until a crisis arises to react.
B)Ignore the external environment.
C)Anticipate and respond to the significant shifts taking place within the environment.
D)Focus on crisis management.

Question 20

The Delphi method is an example of which environmental analysis framework:

A)Dialectic inquiry.
B)Scenario writing and future studies.
C)Simple issue identification and extrapolation.
D)Solicitation of expert opinion.

Question 21

Environmental analysis is largely strategic thinking and strategic planning and consists of understanding the issues in the external environment to determine the implications of those issues for the organization.

Question 22

Comprehensive and well-organized environmental analysis processes will detect all of the changes taking place in the external environment.

Question 23

A PPO (preferred provider organization) is an entity through which various health plans or carriers contract to purchase health care services for patients from a selected group of providers, typically at a better per-patient cost.

Question 24

The Delphi method is the development, evaluation, and synthesis of individual points of view through the systematic solicitation and collation of individual judgments on a particular topic.

Question 25

Institutions that anticipate and recognize significant external forces and modify their strategies and operations accordingly will prosper.

Question 26

In order to be successful, health care organization leaders do not have to develop an understanding of the external environment in which they operate.

Question 27

Regulations about the privacy of medical records are examples of legislative/political external issues.

Question 28

Dialectic inquiry is a "conflict resolution" process of argumentation.

Question 29

Effective environmental analysis occurs through strategic thinking.

Question 30

The organization itself may be affected directly by the legislative/political, economic, social/demographic, technological, and competitive change initiated and fostered by organizations in the general environment.

Question 31

External environmental analysis does not inform the analysis of the internal environment.

Question 32

A "visionary" is a strategic manager who detects the signs of change and explores the significance of change before it becomes apparent to others.

Question 33

Cost pressures and intensified competition will NOT lead to further consolidation within the health care industry.

Question 34

In the current health care industry environment, a multitude of interests are directly or indirectly involved in the delivery of health care.

Question 35

One of the specific goals of environmental analysis is to detect and analyze early or weak signals of emerging issues and changes that will affect the
organization.

Question 36

A brainstorming group is convened for the purpose of understanding an issue, assessing the impact of an issue on the organization, or generating
strategic alternatives. In this process, members present ideas and are allowed to clarify them with brief explanations.

Question 37

Increasing automation of basic business processes, clinical information interfaces, data analysis, and telehealth are NOT examples of technological
changes.

Question 38

Environmental analysis can accurately foretell the future.

Question 39

Strategic thinking is directed toward positioning the organization most effectively within its changing external environment.