Scenario Planning Approach to Adapting in the COVID Era

Rationale and Objectives: The COVID-19 pandemic has caused much uncertainty and disruption in healthcare resulting in many chal-lenges for strategic planning. Scenario planning is a tool that allows healthcare leaders to plan healthcare delivery strategies by incorpo-rating the uncertainties into the analysis and planning process. Materials and Methods: Variables were identified which will have major impact on the future, but whose future direction is uncertain. The extremes of these drivers were used to generate multiple scenarios. A subset of scenarios was used to evaluate potential tactics to deter-mine which may be high yield in the face of uncertainty. Results: Unlike traditional strategic planning, scenario planning does not develop a single future with a path to that future. Scenario plan-ning evaluates tactics to determine which would be helpful in specific scenarios, multiple different futures or under specific conditions. Conclusion: We present a scenario planning model which can be used to determine specific tactics to accommodate the uncertainty due to variable healthcare delivery needs in the COVID-19 era.

Automated summary

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought uncertainty and disruption to healthcare, posing challenges for strategic planning. Scenario planning is a tool that incorporates uncertainties into the analysis and planning process, helping healthcare leaders develop healthcare delivery strategies. By identifying key variables with uncertain future directions, generating multiple scenarios, and evaluating tactics, scenario planning can determine specific strategies to accommodate the uncertainty in healthcare delivery needs during the COVID-19 era.