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Capella University

NURS FPX8020

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Strategic planning is essential for health care organizations to establish the framework used to allocate resources, improve patient outcomes, and respond effectively. The perspective of frontline professionals working in health care organizations adds an invaluable contribution during the strategic planning process through direct engagement with the community, operational knowledge, and experience in implementing evidence-based programs.

The combination of clinical knowledge and commitment to patients ensures that the strategic goals outlined in health care organizations accurately represent the realities of health care delivery and reflect the true needs of underserved populations (Laari & Duma, 2023). A comprehensive strategic planning process that includes the input of frontline staff can enhance both the effectiveness of the organization and the long-term population health outcomes. The assessment aims to create a strategic plan for NYU Langone Hospital’s Department of Population Health (DPH) using the balanced scorecard method.

Departmental Strategic Priorities

Financial sustainability is the primary strategic priority that establishes the capacity of an organization to deliver continuous, equitable health care. The Department of Population Health at NYU Langone Hospitals, since 2013, has been the architect of the Community Service Plan. Therefore, continual funding is a critical financial priority to serve over 40,000 individuals at NYU Langone Hospitals on an annual basis (NYU Langone Health, 2025).

The DPH has an established federal reimbursement mechanism in place and is in alignment with New York State Prevention Agenda funding mechanisms. Maintaining financial sustainability at DPH will allow the community programs to continue to operate and to respond to the changing population health needs.

One of the most important works that a Healthcare Department may do is improve the health of at-risk populations. Disparities exist between communities suffering equally, but some communities are much worse than others. Areas such as Sunset Park, Red Hook, and Hempstead have a higher number of underprivileged people due to a lack of prenatal Care and Early Childhood Development programs available (NYU Langone Health, 2025).

Family retention of 90% and an improvement in parental knowledge of 85% during a two-year timeframe will demonstrate that these programs are feasible projects (NYU Langone Health, 2025). To demonstrate commitment to engaging in the elimination of health disparities, DPH is focusing on improving the overall health of underserved populations through maternal and child health initiatives.

Improving patient safety outcomes and minimizing avoidable patient harm can be achieved by enhancing internal clinical processes. The NYU Langone Hospitals’ DPH Program identifies Fall Prevention and Exercise for the Elderly as one of the eight major internal process initiatives that will enhance clinical practice; the Program encompasses an 8-week provider-led intervention conducted throughout Brooklyn and Long Island (NYU Langone Health, 2025).

The fall prevention and exercise for seniors program represents a high-priority intervention because falls are a major contributor to preventable emergency room visits and rising healthcare costs in all of the communities served by DPH (NYU Langone Health, 2025). As a quality improvement project, the program is feasible because of its clearly defined intervention structure and the established goal of decreasing falls by 35–40% among those who participate in the project (NYU Langone Health, 2025). By enhancing the process inside the DPH, the overall culture of safety for patients and families at DPH has also been improved.

A major goal of DPH is to continue investing in workforce development over time. The goal will help DPH grow in providing care that is responsive to community needs. One way that DPH is going to get the goal is through the Community Health Worker (CHW) Research and Resource Center, which will increase the capacity of the frontline workforce in Sunset Park, Red Hook, Uniondale, Roosevelt, and Mastic Beach (NYU Langone Health, 2025).

Community Health Workers bridge the gap between DPH’s clinical programs and underserved populations, helping to ensure that the population receives access to prevention and intervention services and thus reduces the Health Disparity gap. The initiative is feasible, as the DPH already has existing training programs, as well as evidence of how many people have been served in the Reach and Impact Report from September 2023 to August 2024 (NYU Langone Health, 2025). The DPH will continue to invest in building a skilled and culturally competent workforce to address the community’s changing health needs through 2027.

Effects of Organizational Policies

Departmental strategic priorities are greatly affected by the policies of an organization, which can either enable or limit the execution. For example, the Financial Assistance Policy at the DPH, NYU Langone Hospitals, helps to expand access to underrepresented communities throughout Brooklyn and Long Island by providing sliding-scale care and Medicaid enrollment assistance (NYU Langone Health, 2025).

The NYULH’s commitment to health equity and alignment with New York State Prevention Agenda priorities creates a policy environment that supports DPH’s community-centered services (NYU Langone Health, 2025). The policies provide an enabling environment (through policy alignment) that can help to accelerate the achievement of departmental goals and provide supporting infrastructure for the long-term sustainability of DPH programs.

On the other hand, some organizational restrictions can impede the DPH’s strategic objectives. Documented data gaps in expanded service areas such as Uniondale, Roosevelt, and Mastic Beach indicate that there are limitations at the policy level for how data is collected, therefore inhibiting DPH from developing purely evidence-based interventions (NYU Langone Health, 2025).

Additionally, the lack of standardized data-sharing agreements amongst all community partners has limited DPH’s ability to refine KPIs and provide a consistent measure of program impact by lacking analytical capacity (NYU Langone Health, 2025). Addressing policy-level barriers through data governance updates and expanded protocols for community involvement will further enhance DPH’s ability to implement its strategic objectives.

Alignment of Departmental Strategic Priorities

The financial priority of sustaining FQHC funding aligns with the organization’s commitment to serving over 40,000 individuals annually through its nine Brooklyn primary care centers (NYU Langone Health, 2025). The customer priority of improving maternal and child health outcomes mirrors the plan’s emphasis on PlayReadVIP, ParentChild+, and Greenlight as central population health strategies. The internal processes’ priority of fall prevention directly supports NYULH’s operational goal of reducing preventable harm across Brooklyn and Long Island service areas (NYU Langone Health, 2025).

The learning and growth priority of community health worker development aligns with the organization’s broader workforce capacity objectives documented in the September 2023 to August 2024 Reach and Impact report (NYU Langone Health, 2025). A graphical representation of the alignments is provided in Appendix A, illustrating the direct connections between DPH’s departmental priorities and NYU’s organizational strategic framework across all four balanced scorecard domains.

Department Balanced Scorecard

The customer domain is anchored by ParentChild+, targeting 90% family retention and 85% parental knowledge improvement across underserved communities in Sunset Park, Red Hook, and Hempstead. Internal processes are strengthened through the Fall Prevention program, which targets a 35–40% reduction in fall incidents through an eight-week provider-led intervention, alongside expanded virtual primary care access across Brooklyn and Long Island (NYU Langone Health, 2025).

Formal and Informal Lines of Power

The community health workforce and frontline staff use informal authority by being trusted liaisons between the organization and underserved populations in the neighborhoods of Sunset Park, Red Hook, and Long Island (NYU Langone Health, 2025). Community partners, including advocacy organizations, also exert informal authority by influencing the prioritization process for the organization. For the effective and equitable advancement of departmental strategic priorities, both formal structures of authority and informal expressions of power should be understood.

Organizational culture, policies, and communication practices at healthcare institutions are adversely impacted by the power structures. The cultural context of an organization significantly impacts the way the organization conducts business, including power distance, individualism versus collectivism, and uncertainty avoidance (Mikail et al., 2025). The NYU Langone Hospitals’ Board of Trustees Audit and Compliance Committee sets a formal authority structure for ethical governance of the organization that establishes a framework to ensure that the strategic direction of the organization is accountable, transparent, and has integrity and that leadership at all levels of the organization is ethical (NYU Langone Health, 2025). The authority exercised by leaders within the organization is conducted in ways that support equity, inclusiveness, and protection of the most vulnerable (Malik et al., 2022). The DPH utilizes its expert power to benefit the entire community by using the best available evidence to address community health priorities.

Conclusion

The DPH strategic plan has been developed using a balanced scorecard approach and has four core areas: financial sustainability, maternal and child health, fall prevention, and workforce development. The completion of a well-executed departmental strategic plan also enhances accountability throughout an organization, ensures equitable allocation of resources, and keeps frontline programs highly responsive to the continually changing health needs of the served communities.