Transition Forward

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

Actions: In this context, actions are activities to support or achieve tactics in an effort to meet the expected outcomes of a goal.

Comprehensive Research University: Comprehensive can indicate both coverage of a broad variety of disciplines and/or that a variety of degrees are available in those disciplines. No university is completely comprehensive, as new degrees and interdisciplinary degrees are developed every day. Augusta University is more comprehensive than either of its founding universities as a liberal arts and a health sciences institution, but we have much to accomplish before we realize the breadth and depth we aspire to when we use the term ‘comprehensive.’

Enterprise: A generic term to conceptualize the whole of the university, including the health system and all branch campuses and clinics statewide and beyond. The enterprise can be considered to include the Augusta University (Augusta University), Georgia Regents Health System (GRHS), Georgia Regents Medical Center (GRMC), the Children’s Hospital of Georgia (CHOG), Georgia Regents Medical Associates (GRMA), the Georgia Regents Research Institute, and our related clinics and campuses.

Expected Outcomes: In both unit planning and individual performance planning, goals and tactics should be measurable with threshold, target, and high performance levels, the expected outcomes, set as tactics are established.

Goals:

• Organizational Goals: The means by which Strategic Priorities are met.
• Unit Goals: The aspirations of individual units within the enterprise as they see themselves in the context of the Strategic Plan.
• Individual Performance Goals: The means by which individuals support the goals and priorities of their units, and through which expectations and merit are established for each individual in our workforce.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): It is one thing to have measurable tactics within a given unit, and it is another to make the tactic work. An individual or team responsible for actualizing a tactic will set markers and completion dates for actions. This provides benchmarks, or KPIs, as to whether a tactic is viable, if it is on time, and if it needs to be altered along the way.

Measures: The qualitative or quantitative means by which actions (tactics) toward improvement can be gauged.

Objectives (see: Tactics)

Planning:

• Unit Planning: The priorities, goals, tactics, and actions by which each individual unit will meet its portion of the Strategic Priorities of the enterprise as well as its own accreditation requirements and each disciplines’ expectations.
• Strategic Planning: Planning at a high level—meaning enterprise, university, hospital, college, etc.— to allocate human and monetary resources and effort within the whole.

Tactics: Objectives and actions to accomplish a goal.

Translational Research: Midpoint research that applies basic science results from the laboratory to developmental experiments in hopes of results that might eventually be useful in clinical and practical applications. Sometimes referred to as “bench to bedside.”

Strategic Priorities: Aspirational and visionary statements that encapsulate what we want to become in the near and distant future.

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