Summary

In study session I you have learnt

• Planning is the combination compiling and analyzing information, dreaming up ideas using logic and imagination and judgment in order to arrive at a decision about what should be done.
• Health planning is the process of defining community health problems, identifying needs and resources, establishing priority goals and setting out administrative action needed to reach those goals.
• Panning shows us: where are we now, which problems are important to be solved, where are we going, with what, how, by whom and by when.
• Planning helps us to minimize risk of failure by reducing the uncertainty and clarifying consequences of related management actions and it helps us to select the best alternatives that help us to achieve the best result at a minimum cost possible.
• Planning helps for effective utilization of resources and it provide a basis for monitoring and controlling work.
• Fundamental purpose of planning is to help organization reach its objectives.
• A good plan should give: a clear vision/mission, goal and objectives, a clear picture of the tasks to be accomplished and the resources needed to accomplish the task (human resources, material, money, time, space and information).
• Planning takes place at any level in health system. Planning takes place continually, it is cyclic/spiral process.
• Planning methods can be applied to: a large program at national level eg. malaria control programme or small one - at village level eg. construction of community health post.
• Planning must be collective undertaking and It requires the participation of: : Professionals - from health and other sectors, community/non government organizations (NGO) and government/party.
• There are two types of planning commonly used in the health sector; these are strategic planning and operational planning.
• Strategic planning or Long range planning is a document outlining the general direction an organization is intending to follow in broad terms. Usually they take 5 years but can go as five to 20 years and are developed by top level management
• SWOT analysis (SWOT= strength & weakness, opportunities & threats) is strategic planning tool that matches internal organizational strengths and weakness with external opportunities and threats.
• Operational planning refers to the action plans that guide your day-to-day work and it is an instrument for implementing the strategic plan.
• Operational plans are short-term plans that cover time periods of up to one year, so they are usually referred to as annual operational plans.
• Strategic planning is commonly developed by the top level management, while tactical and operational planning are developed by middle and frontline management, respectively.