Internal and External Stakeholders

Main Post

As Mountain View Health Center (MVHC) moves forward with a merger to ensure its community’s access to high-quality care, involving all key stakeholders is necessary to develop its new strategic plan. The next steps for MVHC leaders are to identify the internal and external stakeholders and focus on building these relationships amongst the groups. This discussion post will highlight these essential elements for MVHC to consider and how these partnerships impact the success of the strategic plan.

Internal and External Stakeholders

Marquis and Huston (2017) define stakeholders as the “entities in an organization’s environment that play a role in the organization’s health and performance or affected by the organization” (p. 305). The internal stakeholders of MVHC are the board of directors, physicians, nurses, ancillary staff, and other healthcare providers (Laureate Education, 2013). Companies do not always choose external stakeholders. These external stakeholders take an interest in a company and will influence decision-making (Marquis et al., 2017). External stakeholders for MVHC include community centers, network hospitals, insurance companies, patients, and regulatory bodies (Laureate Education, 2013; Sare & Ogilvie, 2010).

As MVHC explorers a merger with a network hospital to keep the facility operating and providing access to necessary care for its community, stakeholder involvement is essential. This group of diverse people is not only responsible for this significant decision, but also for building the hospital’s new strategic plan after the merger takes place.