National Association for Healthcare Quality

Operational Assessments | Recruiting and Staffing | Strategic Planning

After working with .orgSource to successfully transition NAHQ from an AMC to a standalone organization, the organization set its sights on building an operational framework for the future.

Overview

After working with .orgSource on the successful transition of the National Association for Healthcare Quality (NAHQ) from an association management company to a standalone organization, CEO Stephanie Mercado, set her sights on building a framework for the organization’s future.

Founded in 1976, the National Association for Healthcare Quality is the only organization dedicated to healthcare quality professionals, defining the standard of excellence for the profession, and equipping professionals and organizations across the continuum of healthcare to meet these standards.

The challenge

After the significant work to transition the organization, Mercado recognized that NAHQ needed a strong operational plan with a focus on planning, product development and metrics.

.orgSource was engaged to work with Mercado and the team on developing the plan. With deep expertise in resource planning, .orgSource understood the critical importance of a solid start to NAHQ’s next phase.

.orgSource developed an operational plan to allow the organization to leverage the momentum of the transition and prepare for future growth and transformation.

The Solution

.orgSource provided a variety of operational planning services and workshops to guide the development of NAHQ’s roadmap to the future. Discussions and planning took place around:

  • Staffing, to ensure that each division of NAHQ has the roles and positions, including volunteers, to achieve the organization’s growth targets, and that staff has the required skill sets.
  • Capacity planning, to examine NAHQ’s needs in terms of people, finances, technology and other internal resources to achieve its growth targets.
  • Product and program planning, to evaluate pricing strategies, identify future product and program needs, and chart a high-level course of development for current and new products, programs and services.

.orgSource also led staff mentoring and training sessions to support professional development on topics including being part of a virtual team and several series of training on management, business writing and conducting efficient meetings.

The Results

With .orgSource’s help, NAHQ was able to look at its operations more holistically and with a disciplined process. For example, .orgSource reviewed the organization’s entire product line to assign costs and revenues in a meaningful way and found the top revenue generator was underpriced. NAHQ increased the price and relaunched the product without losing sales; in fact, sales increased.

.orgSource brought a large association’s toolkit to a small association, enabling NAHQ to take a long-term look at its business goals and strategies to optimize them for future growth.

The strong operational plan has proven agile enough to grow with the organization as it evolves. After a successful and stable year, Mercado has turned her attention to adding products and services to improve member engagement and recognition of the value of the healthcare quality profession.