Introduction

In 1997, the College’s Board of Trustees (BOT) approved a five year strategic plan. While the Board recognized that this plan would expire at the end of 2002, it wisely chose not to update it through an extensive planning process. This decision was made recognizing that the College has continued to refine its planning process over the past few years. Over the next five years, the College’s planning activities became more dynamic and responsive to the organization’s needs with annual priority setting and the creation of an environmental scanning process. Furthermore, it also became much better linked to the College’s budget cycle with the change in the fiscal year, and better monitored with greater resource flexibility with the establishment of measures, targets, and quarterly reporting. 

In addition to these improvements in the College’s planning process, strategic planning documents and/or recommendations have been presented by several major task forces including the following: (1) Environmental Scanning Work Group (2004-2006); (2) Cardiovascular Care Team (2003); (3) Task Force on Clinical Science and Quality of Care (2002); (4) International Strategy Task Force (2002); (5) Property Task Force (2002); (6) Task Force for the 21st Century (1999); (7) Task Force for Strategic Directions on CME (1998-2000); and (8) Task Force to Review the Annual Scientific Session (1997-1998). 

Since the College’s original five-year plan expired at the end of 2002, it was appropriate that the Executive Committee, which serves as the College’s planning committee, should step back from its day-to-day activities and comprehensively review the College’s strategy. This review has been conducted each year under the leadership of the President-Elect who will continue to be responsible for overseeing the College’s planning activities. The resulting ACC Strategic Framework is the result of the integration of work that has been done to date and sets the course for the next three years in a format that can be communicated to members, staff and others. The strategic framework is also presented in a format that makes it easy for leadership to modify the plan, as needed, over the course of the year.

In 2004, the College chose to enhance its measurement and strategic management processes through the adoption of the balanced scorecard.  The balanced scorecard is a management system (not only a measurement system) that enables organizations to clarify their vision and strategy and translate them into action. It provides feedback around both the internal business processes and external outcomes in order to continuously improve strategic performance and results.  It was a new approach to strategic management that was developed in the early 1990's by Drs. Robert Kaplan (Harvard Business School) and David Norton. 

Over the past two years, the College has worked with the balanced scorecard format to adapt and incorporate it into the College’s overall ACC Strategic Framework as illustrated in Exhibit 1.  As part of the adaptation process, the College has updated its goals and objectives and created a new strategy map that depicts these goals and objectives according to the four perspectives of the balanced scorecard format.  

The balanced scorecard suggests that organizations look at themselves from four perspectives, and to develop metrics, collect data and analyze this information relative to each of these perspectives so as to keep “in balance.â€�  The four perspectives adopted by ACC include the following: (1) financial; (2) people and culture; (3) internal processes; and (4) members and stakeholders.  Exhibit 2 presents the ACC Strategy Map with the revised goals and objectives organized according to these perspectives that was approved by the BOT in December 2005.
With the strategy map in place, significant work has occurred to develop measures and annual targets linked to the objectives.  Furthermore, the College’s operational plan has been organized according to this format.  

As the College plans and assesses its activities going forward, it will use several inputs to assist with strategy development: (1) assessment of performance according to annual targets; (2) analysis of initiatives by objective to see if they are in balance (e.g., do some objectives lack initiatives and why?  Are the current initiatives making progress toward their primary objectives?); and (3) analysis of environmental scanning information to determine if there are new initiatives and/or new objectives to consider for the College’s planning.

ACC Mission

The mission of the American College of Cardiology is to advocate for quality cardiovascular care—through education, research promotion, development and application of standards and guidelines—and to influence health care policy.

ACC Core Values

• Professionalism: The interests of patients are primary.
• Knowledge: The College must promote growth, dissemination and application of knowledge about cardiovascular medicine.
• Value of the cardiovascular specialist: The cardiovascular profession makes a distinct contribution to medical care that should be recognized and enhanced.
• Integrity: Honesty, compliance with legal requirements, and ethical behavior are essential in all activities.
• Member driven: The College and its major activities must be led by active members and must promote volunteerism.
• Inclusiveness: The College involves a broad range of volunteers that reflects the composition of its membership.