The Comprehensive Business Plan Development Guide is a detailed guideline for developing concise, coherent and complete business plans for presentation and review by hospitals' senior leadership and executive boards. It guides planners in the development of consistent, complete and efficient business plans even though each opportunity is unique.

The Comprehensive Business Plan Development Guide is a four-point model that includes:
The Introduction—five basic purposes served by a business plan and five criteria that mandate the preparation of a business plan

The Outline—the order in which the information should flow in every plan

The Narrative—a full-text of each outline point including content requirements and hints on how to find the required information

The Recommended Exhibits and Appendices including:
- Your Review Group Members
- Data Sources
- Quarterly Business Plan Evaluation Form
- Business Plan Exhibits
- Excel Spread Sheets

The Comprehensive Business Plan Development Guide is a detailed guideline for developing concise, coherent and complete business plans for presentation and review by hospitals' senior leadership and executive boards. It guides planners in the development of consistent, complete and efficient business plans even though each opportunity is unique.

What problems does the Solution address?
The problem is that new business planning documents are often presented to senior executives and board members in a variety of formats, depending upon the standards or whims of whoever is putting it together. Sometimes vital information and supporting details are missing, requiring reworking of the plan. Even when all pertinent information is included, it is not always readily found in the document. Both leadership and petitioner's time is wasted.

How was this Solution developed?
Senior management within Johns Hopkins Medicine requested that a standard business plan format be developed. This would ensure both that those preparing the business plan would be aware of what supporting details were needed, and also that the information would be presented to top management in a concise and coherent format.

The first business plan template was developed in 1995 as a joint project between Planning & Marketing and Finance as an internal guideline for those two departments in developing business plans. The revision of mid-1997 was presented to, and approved by, senior management as the format to use in presentations to their weekly Business Review Group (BRG) meetings, which thoroughly evaluated all business opportunities presented that required the use of the Johns Hopkins name or investment capital.

What does it take to implement? Maintain?
This Solution is a guideline for those preparing a comprehensive business plan. Implementation requires the determination by leadership to use a standard and comprehensive business planning tool and a division (most likely within Finance) to ensure its use each time a business plan is undertaken.

What resources, staffing and skills are needed?
This will assist anyone within a hospital organization develop a business plan; it is most effective for business, finance and legal members of the team.

The Comprehensive Business Plan Development Guide has been used for all key projects across Johns Hopkins Medicine including the creation of Joint Venture between Johns Hopkins Medicine and a technology company to commercialize and offer to other hospitals a technology service used at Johns Hopkins; the expansion of the oncology in-patient and out-patient programs; and the creation of a new entity that will serve the international market by helping them construct and run hospitals.