A Target, an Owner, and a Date: Three Strategic Objectives for a Community Hospital Nursing Division
Student Name
Doctor of Nursing Practice Program, Aspen University
DNP885: Strategic Planning and Financial Management
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
A Target, an Owner, and a Date: Three Strategic Objectives for a Community Hospital Nursing Division
An environmental scan identifies where an organization should focus; strategic objectives say what it will achieve there, by when, and who is answerable. The scan of Harlan Valley Medical Center's nursing division, a composite 160-bed community hospital, found first-year registered nurse turnover of 31 percent, contract labor spending of $4.6 million, and nearly one in four heart failure patients back in the hospital within a month. This paper converts those findings into three strategic objectives for the fiscal years ending June 30, 2028, and June 30, 2029, each with a baseline, a target, an owner, a date, interim milestones, and a rationale for the number chosen.
The Standard for an Objective
Doran (1981) proposed that a management objective should be specific, measurable, assignable to a person, realistic given available resources, and time-related. The third criterion is often misremembered as achievable, but Doran's point was that someone must own each objective. This paper applies all five and adds one more requirement drawn from performance measurement: each objective should connect to the organization's broader aims, so that progress on one does not come at the expense of another. Kaplan and Norton (1992) argued that financial measures alone describe past performance poorly and should be balanced with measures of customers, internal processes, and learning and growth. The three objectives below cover workforce, cost, and patient outcome for that reason.
Objective 1: Keep New Graduates
By June 30, 2029, first-year turnover among registered nurses hired as new graduates between July 1, 2027, and June 30, 2028, will be 18 percent or lower, compared with a baseline of 31 percent. Owner: director of professional development. Measure: the number of new graduate nurses in the cohort who leave the hospital within 12 months of hire, divided by the number hired, from human resources separation records, reported quarterly to the nursing leadership council.
The target of 18 percent was chosen because it would bring new graduate turnover close to the division's overall rate of 16 percent, and because published multisite evidence associates structured transition programs with better new nurse outcomes (Spector et al., 2015). A target of 10 percent was considered and rejected as unrealistic in two years with a competitor recruiting in the region.
Objective 2: Reduce Contract Labor
By June 30, 2029, annual spending on contract registered nurses will fall from $4.6 million to $2.3 million or less, with an interim target of $3.5 million for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2028. Owners: chief nursing officer and finance director jointly. Measure: contract nursing expense from the general ledger, reported monthly in the nursing division's financial review.
This objective depends on Objective 1 and on filling vacancies. Every new graduate retained reduces the need for a contract nurse to fill the gap, and the savings will help fund the residency program. The target halves spending rather than eliminating it, because some contract use will remain necessary for seasonal volume and leaves of absence.
Objective 3: Reduce Heart Failure Readmissions
By June 30, 2029, the 30-day all-cause readmission rate for patients discharged with heart failure will be 19.0 percent or lower, compared with a baseline of 23.4 percent. Owner: director of cardiovascular services, with the lead nurse practitioner of the new transitional clinic. Measure: the share of index stays coded with heart failure as the principal diagnosis that are followed by any inpatient admission here in the next 30 days, taken from the monthly quality report, with the Medicare measure tracked alongside.
The target reflects evidence rather than hope. National readmission rates for conditions targeted by the federal penalty program fell to 17.8 percent by 2015 (Zuckerman et al., 2016), so 19.0 percent is within the range many hospitals have reached. And among Medicare patients hospitalized for heart failure, patients leaving hospitals where a larger share were seen by a physician within a week carried a lower readmission risk than patients leaving hospitals in the lowest quartile for such visits (Hernandez et al., 2010), which is the mechanism the clinic will provide.
Interim Milestones
Each objective has milestones that can be checked before its end date, so that the division learns early whether it is on track.
| Objective | Milestone | Date | Owner |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. New graduate retention | Residency curriculum and schedule approved | March 31, 2027 | Director of professional development |
| 1. New graduate retention | 60 preceptors complete preceptor training | May 31, 2027 | Unit educators |
| 1. New graduate retention | 100 percent of new graduates enrolled in residency | Quarterly from July 1, 2027 | Director of professional development |
| 2. Contract labor | State workforce grant application submitted | January 15, 2027 | Chief nursing officer |
| 2. Contract labor | Contract spending at or below $3.5 million | June 30, 2028 | CNO and finance director |
| 3. HF readmissions | Transitional clinic business case approved | June 30, 2027 | Director of cardiovascular services |
| 3. HF readmissions | Clinic opens | January 3, 2028 | Lead nurse practitioner |
| 3. HF readmissions | 70 percent of HF discharges seen within 7 days | June 30, 2028 | Lead nurse practitioner |
Alignment With the Mission and With Each Other
The hospital's mission is safe, close-to-home care. Objective 1 supports safety through a stable, experienced workforce; Objective 3 brings follow-up care close to home, replacing a 40-mile trip and a 19-day wait. Objective 2 protects the financial capacity to do both. The objectives also check one another. If contract spending fell because units were simply running short, Objective 1's turnover measure would likely worsen, and the division will watch overtime and staffing ratios as balancing measures. If readmissions fell because patients were placed in observation instead, the division will track observation stays within 30 days of discharge to detect it.
How Progress Will Be Reported
Objectives lose force when they are reviewed only once a year. The nursing leadership council will receive a one-page scorecard each month showing the three objectives, their interim milestones, and the balancing measures, with each line colored against its target and a named owner beside it. Any objective off track for two consecutive months will require its owner to bring a short written explanation and a recovery plan to the next meeting. The board's quality committee will receive the same scorecard quarterly. Keeping the report brief and regular is deliberate: the aim is for leaders to see drift while there is still time to correct it, and for each owner to know that the numbers will be read.
What the Plan Leaves Out
The scan identified other weaknesses, including an aging electronic record and low scores for discharge teaching. They are not strategic objectives for this cycle. A plan with three objectives that are funded and owned is more likely to succeed than one with ten that compete for the same leaders' time. Excluded items will be revisited at the annual review.
Conclusion
Three objectives, reducing first-year turnover to 18 percent, halving contract labor spending, and reducing heart failure readmissions to 19.0 percent, turn the environmental scan into commitments that can be checked. Each has a baseline, a target, an owner, a date, and milestones; each target is justified by data or evidence; and together they balance workforce, cost, and patient outcomes. The following modules will build the budgets and business case needed to fund them.
References
Doran, G. T. (1981). There's a S.M.A.R.T. way to write management's goals and objectives. Management Review, 70(11), 35-36.
Hernandez, A. F., Greiner, M. A., Fonarow, G. C., Hammill, B. G., Heidenreich, P. A., Yancy, C. W., Peterson, E. D., & Curtis, L. H. (2010). Relationship between early physician follow-up and 30-day readmission among Medicare beneficiaries hospitalized for heart failure. JAMA, 303(17), 1716-1722. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2010.533
Kaplan, R. S., & Norton, D. P. (1992). The balanced scorecard: Measures that drive performance. Harvard Business Review, 70(1), 71-79.
Spector, N., Blegen, M. A., Silvestre, J., Barnsteiner, J., Lynn, M. R., Ulrich, B., Fogg, L., & Alexander, M. (2015). Transition to practice study in hospital settings. Journal of Nursing Regulation, 5(4), 24-38. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2155-8256(15)30031-4
Zuckerman, R. B., Sheingold, S. H., Orav, E. J., Ruhter, J., & Epstein, A. M. (2016). Readmissions, observation, and the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program. New England Journal of Medicine, 374(16), 1543-1551. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMsa1513024
How this DNP 885 Module 2 example is structured
DNP885 expects objectives in measurable form, with a target, a responsible role and a date. Aspen does not publish module deliverables, so check your classroom for the exact prompt. This example sources its criteria, writes each objective with baseline, target, owner, measure and rationale, adds dated milestones, aligns objectives with the mission and states exclusions.
DNP885 Module 2 questions, answered
What does DNP885 Module 2 usually ask for?
This part of DNP885 typically asks you to turn your environmental scan into measurable strategic goals or objectives, each with a target, a responsible role and a date. Aspen does not publish module deliverables, so your classroom's instructions govern.
What does the A in SMART stand for?
In Doran's original 1981 article, A stood for assignable, meaning a person is responsible, and R for realistic. Later versions often use achievable and relevant.
How do I justify the target number in a strategic objective?
Anchor it in your baseline, published benchmarks or evidence about what similar organizations have achieved, and explain why a more or less ambitious number was rejected.
Write yours, or have the desk draft it
This paper is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Aspen University document. Read it for the moves, then write your own to the instructions in your classroom. If you want one built to your exact prompt and rubric, the first custom sample is free and arrives in 24 to 48 hours.