The purpose of this course is to gain experience in writing a BP. The focus should be on the process of creating the plan, more than numbers in the plan. In the “real” world we would research financial data thoroughly to be accurate, but due to time constraints, for this course, it is acceptable to estimate revenue and expense items. For example in calculating labor costs we could spend time researching average RN salaries for a given location. Your estimation of what an RN would earn in your area, will be acceptable for this BP.
Create a BUsiness plan. A BP can be written for any business, but for this assignment, the BP must be related to health care. BPs can be organized in many ways, but for this course the BP will be organized as follows:
Business Plan Sections
1: Business Description
2: Marketing Plan
3: Organizational Operations Plan and Time Line
4: Capital Startup Budget and Amortization Schedule & Cash Flow Projections
5: Income Projections &Break-Even Analysis and Projected End of Year One Balance Sheet
6: Executive Summary and Evaluation
The BP should follow general APA guidelines and proper English grammar, except as follows: 1. Use single spaced lines. Skip one line between paragraphs. . 2. Do not include an Abstract. 3. Do not include a running head, but each page should be numbered as in APA. 4. Your title sheet will be completely different from APA title sheets, and will actually be completed as a last step in your paper. Until then your title sheet will simply be your name and the title of your project. Use of headings to organize each of the sections of the BP is required. Try to state as much of the details of your project in bullet lists or tables to save on space. The goal is to be thorough, yet succinct, in the presentation of the factual information for your BP.
Business Plan Directions
1. Business Description
Limit 1 page of text + the temporary title sheet + reference sheet
In this section describe:
1. The nature and objectives of the proposed business.
2. The projected date this business will begin.
3. Where this business will be located
4. How this business fits in with the sponsoring institution .
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5. How this proposed business fits with the market environment: Is this something new?; An improvement to something that already exists?; or Is this something that will compete in a market that is underserved?, etc.
6. What is the targeted patient population.
7. The industry trends that suggest that this new business will be successful.
8. The projected outcome for the business in terms of long and short term goals.
9. This section of the plan will include at least three recent journal references related to the business . These journal articles can relate to any section of the business description.
Each item (1-9) along with formatting will be worth 10% of the grade on this section of the business plan.
Suggestion:
*We all like to think big, but in starting a new venture we have to think small. For example perhaps your business plan is to start a Nurse Practitioner Clinic near a local homeless shelter, to improve PR for your hospital in the community. You really want it to be open 24hrs a day, staffed by 3 Nurse Practitioners and a Medical Director, which is a great goal. However, to start out maybe scheduling one Nurse Practitioner for two mornings a week would be more effective. Then as funds are generated from PR and donations, and the program becomes popular, it could be expanded to Monday through Friday mornings, then 8 hour days, with the goal of being a 24hr service at the end of the first year. This will decrease start up costs dramatically. As another example, if you want to start a business, which will provide health care to victims of natural disasters across the United States, or even on an international basis, it would be prudent to start off focusing on a county (a Louisiana parish), or even a small region of a particular state.