Four Vital Systems That Your Organization Can't Do Without

By Ira Jacobs
Managing an organization that provides services to individuals with developmental disabilities is, in my opinion, a difficult task. Managing the organization can be facilitated by employing an array of systems that, in many ways, protect the organization's operations.

I believe that every organization in the developmental disability field, irrespective of its size, should have these four systems in place:

1. A Corporate Compliance Plan
2. A Strategic Planning Process
3. A Program Evaluation or Outcomes Management system
4. A Performance Improvement System

The organization should also have a "working knowledge" of Quality Tools and know how to use them in the most appropriate manner.

A Corporate Compliance Plan is an absolute necessity. The plan when fully implemented will go a long way to ensure that an agency is in compliance with the rules and regulations promulgated by governmental regulatory agencies. In addition, a viable corporate compliance plan may be the best defense against audits by the Office of the Medicaid Inspector General, OMIG.

A Program Evaluation system will tell you how your programs are doing, whether they are achieving their goals, and performing as they are supposed to perform.

A Performance Improvement system will be the driving force behind improving those areas that have been identified as needing improvement, or simply bring an area to its optimal level.

Strategic Planning is an ongoing process that assists the organization to fulfill its mission and reach the vision that has been identified by the organization's leadership.

Perhaps one of the most important "systems" is a process that I call Factor Analysis Modeling or FAM. This not the statistical Factor Analysis, and has no resemblance to that process. It is a standardized method of producing a situational analysis of an organization. The FAM gives us a "snapshot" of the organization as it exists at one point in time...NOW."

Factor Analysis Modeling (FAM) is the "launching pad" for all subsequent Corporate Compliance, Strategic Planning, Performance Improvement, and Program Evaluation / Outcomes management systems.

Program Evaluation, Performance Improvement, and Strategic Planning systems should be blended to produce optimal results. Thinking of these three systems as one larger total system, and utilizing the fact that they overlap in many areas, will go a long way towards guaranteeing the success of your organizations quest for optimal service delivery.

Dr. Ira Jacobs has been in the field of developmental disabilities for over fifty years. He has covered a wide array of positions ranging from physical therapist to CEO of a large multi services treatment center. He believes that systems are the key to organizational optimal