How to Set & Measure Goals in Healthcare Businesses (+ Free SMART Goals Template)

The start of a new year has traditionally always been the time to set new goals and resolutions. For healthcare businesses, the onset of a new calendar year presents the perfect opportunity to set business goals that will influence operational changes and objectives throughout the year. But as the goal-setters among us can attest, coming up with the goal is the easy part; sticking to it and achieving it is another challenge. 

In this article, we’ll look at how to set realistic business goals for your healthcare business and some example goals to set for 2024. But first, here’s why it’s important to set business goals in the first place, so you can start strategizing your 2024 goals from a place of understanding.  

‍

Why You Should Set Business Goals

Setting business goals, whether on an annual, quarterly, monthly, or weekly basis, is crucial as it provides a sense of direction for your company. Business goals offer explicit targets that all members of your healthcare organization can strive for, fostering motivation and enhancing productivity — assuming these goals are not excessively ambitious to the point of being unattainable, which could have counterproductive effects on productivity.

In addition to providing employees with objectives, setting business goals in your healthcare company enables you to monitor progress across various facets of the business. They can also help you remain aligned with company values and stay competitive in a changing marketplace when set correctly. 

Speaking of setting goals…

‍

How to Set Realistic Goals for Your Business (Be SMART)

Before crafting a list of 101 business goals you want to achieve in 2024, you must take some time to understand your healthcare business. Questions that can help with this include:

• What is my company’s vision? 
• What are we (as a company) trying to achieve? 
• Who are our competitors?
• Who are our customers?
• What do our current metrics look like? E.g., sales figures, employee numbers, staff turnover, employee satisfaction, customer numbers, revenue, business operating costs, etc.

Once you’ve completed this exercise, conduct a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) to help you find which areas to focus on for your primary goals. 

A SWOT analysis builds a clearer picture of how your business stands internally and in the broader market context (e.g., against competitors). If you’ve never done one, Hubspot has a great beginner’s guide to help you get started. 

Once you’ve completed your SWOT analysis, it’s time to get SMART. A popular framework for setting achievable goals, SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. (Who knew there were so many acronyms in goal setting?)

It’s about attaching clearly defined parameters to a goal so you have a framework for getting started and a way to measure whether you’re on track. Luckily, it’s easier to set SMART goals than you think. Just follow this framework and fill in the brackets:

‍

(I or the business) will (action word/s) (object of the goal) by (time) to (relevance/results). 

So, for example, instead of your goal being “boost revenue,” it would be “fictitious healthcare company A" will grow revenue to $700k ARR by December 31, 2024, to enable expansion into city B. 

‍Tip: Businesses that set quarterly goals (or annual goals split into quarterly targets) have a 31% higher ROI than companies that just set yearly goals.

‍

‍

How to Measure Goals 

Setting measurable goals is the only surefire way to know if you’ve achieved them, so it’s important not to overlook the “M” in your SMART goal. 

Some goals, like our example above for the fictitious healthcare company A, are easy to measure. In this case, if revenue is anything over $700k by the end of the year, then the goal was met. However, less tangible goals can require more nuanced measures. Let’s look at this in more detail. 

KPIs (or key performance indicators) are measurable values that demonstrate how effectively a company achieves key business objectives. These data points/metrics can be tracked to determine whether a goal is complete and are incredibly useful for goals that are harder to measure. 

KPIs will vary depending on the goal, but examples include the following: 

• New inbound leads
• Lead conversion % 
• Customer acquisition cost 
• Debt to equity ratio
• Employee satisfaction rating 
• Number of refunds/cancellations
• Return on Ad Spend
• Absenteeism
• Page views 
• Link clicks

Once you’ve identified relevant KPIs for your healthcare business’s goals, build a goal review process into your schedule to help your team stay on track and identify goals that are falling behind the target before it’s too late. Depending on the scale of your goal and its timeline, this review could happen monthly or quarterly. 

‍

Examples of healthcare business goals to set in 2024

If you’re stuck for a starting point, here are some SMART goal ideas for different areas of your business. Feel free to swap out the numbers or timeframes to suit your business. 

Brand Recognition

1. Get five new reviews on the company's Google Business Profile every month to increase brand awareness and social proof. 
2. Grow (target audience) website traffic by 30% in 6 months. 

Product Offerings

1. Introduce in-home appointment options by April 1st to diversify our offerings and expand our client base.
2. Set up appointment packages for our three most popular services by the end of January to help boost sales.
3. Develop a loyalty program by the end of Q2 to reward and retain customers. 
4. Introduce online booking before February 1st because it’s the customers’ preferred booking method.

Finance

1. Reduce business overheads by 10% by the end of the Year. 
2. Increase revenue by 5% monthly to meet the annual target of $700K ARR.

Employees 

1. Hire two new sales team members in Q1 to handle the increase in leads. 
2. Increase employee satisfaction scores by 30% to reduce turnover and improve morale.

‍