1. EAST TENNESSEE CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL
Issue 1 • Feb 3, 2014
Future
Focus
Newsletter
Sharing information about our future
Want more information
or have a question?
Idea sharing sessions generate
lots of interest
Call or email Kathy Boyd,
Director of Strategy,
Planning and New Business
Development, at extension
8264 or kwboyd@etch.com.
Hundreds of Children’s Hospital employees, medical staff, board members and key
community stakeholders demonstrated tremendous participation in the recent idea
sharing sessions. All were asked to transport themselves to 2020 and share their ideas
about what Children’s Hospital should be in that year.
More than 280 ideas and comments were captured and close to 8,200 votes were cast.
All the ideas and comments shared have been consolidated and uploaded to a virtual
site where everyone can continue to share ideas, vote for ideas and review newly
added information.
Why sharing your ideas is
important to our future
The newly launched Focus on our Future 2020 is a new way of including and engaging
all of Children’s Hospital’s key stakeholders in the strategic planning process.
Asking everyone to share their ideas about the future inspires lively debate about what
Children’s Hospital should look like in the year 2020 and beyond.
“Sharing your ideas and validating others are crucial parts of the strategic planning
process,” commented Keith Goodwin, President and CEO. “The idea sharing sessions
give the board and hospital leadership critical insight to what our employees, medical
staff and community think Children’s Hospital should be in the year 2020 and beyond.
This insight allows us to make more informed decisions as we develop our future
goals and objectives. Who better to guide us on the path to continued success than
those who work tirelessly each and every day providing care to the children of East
Tennessee? I invite everyone to continue to share their ideas as we develop our future
picture.”
STRATEGIC PLANNING
Form No. 30673 (01/14)

2. EAST TENNESSEE CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL
Virtual site now open for more ideas
Have another idea about the future of Children’s Hospital to share? Interested in seeing what ideas
are garnering lots of attention? Curious about what other ideas have been added? The Focus on
our Future 2020 virtual site is now open and accessible to everyone.
Visit the idea sharing site at http://www.etch.com/ideas or by clicking the Focus on our Future 2020
icon on our website, www.etch.com. You’ll have the opportunity to share new ideas, vote for ideas
and track the progress of ideas most important to you.
The virtual site will be open until Feb. 19, so take the time now to visit and help Children’s Hospital
create the best plan for its future.
What happens next?
So you shared your ideas and voted on others, what happens next? All the information collected
will be consolidated and shared with Children’s Hospital’s Board of Directors and leadership.
Based on the collective ideas from the idea sharing sessions, a future picture of what Children’s
Hospital should look like in the year 2020 will emerge. The future picture will be shared with
everyone and then the process of developing goals and objectives will begin.
Communications about the process and what happens along the way will be shared organizationwide through this biweekly newsletter. The timeline for the process is shared below:
See what your
co-workers think of the
idea sharing process.
Strategy? Goal? Objective? What?
During any planning process, buzz words like strategy, goals and objectives get tossed around
frequently. Our internal process is no different and the words often get interchanged. Below is a
quick overview of the terms being used for Focus on Our Future 2020:
Future picture: What specifically will we become?
Goal: Where are we going? What are our timeless aspirations?
Objective: What are our SMART targets? (specific, measurable, achievable, resourced, timeline)
Strategy: How will we achieve objectives?
Tactics: What specific, daily, repeatable, unambiguous steps, will be needed and how will we hold
each other accountabile and stay on timeline?
STRATEGIC PLANNING