FSG has developed and applied a powerful and dynamic strategic-planning process for medical specialty boards.
Specialty boards (e.g., the American Board of Internal Medicine) certify physicians to practice in specific medical disciplines, to ensure the highest standards of care for patients. Certification involves both initial certification of new practitioners and continuing certification for physicians throughout their careers.
The pace of change in medical practices has accelerated dramatically. The science, technology, economics, regulations and societal expectations underlying medicine are all converging in complex and unpredictable ways. As a result, leading medical boards are calling on FSG, with its foresight and scenario planning expertise, to facilitate their strategic planning processes and help them prioritize actions and investments.
FSG’s work with certifying boards is highly collaborative. We work closely with board project teams starting with project design and continuing through to the delivery of the actual strategic plan. Early in the process we conduct in-depth interviews with board members, leaders of professional societies, and current medical residents – all for the purpose of developing a robust foundation for strategic thinking about future certification needs and requirements.
A major benefit of FSG strategic planning is our access to a proprietary set of scenarios on the future of medicine. We have developed this set of four scenarios with the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). Besides being used by ACGME and by certifying boards, these scenarios have informed FSG strategic planning at schools of medicine and nursing, and at medical professional societies.
Draft board strategies are developed in two-day board strategy workshops facilitated by FSG. An extended period of strategy synthesis follows, whereby strategies and implementation tactics are refined, evaluated and prioritized within the planning period (typically five-to-seven years). This is often a propitious time for boards to revisit mission and vision statements.
Feedback we have received on these scenario-based planning processes have been uniformly positive – and gratifying to FSG principals. Invariably we hear that our scenario planning process uncovered future board needs and requirements that would otherwise not have surfaced in traditional strategic planning processes.
Among the medical specialty boards FSG has worked with are the American Board of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery and the American Board of Family Medicine. FSG-facilitated scenario-based strategic planning documents are available on the websites of these organizations.