Importance of Managing Change in Healthcare

The healthcare industry is rapidly changing right in front of our very own eyes. One has to evolve, find new strategies that is appealing to the market, embrace innovation, incorporate different approaches to cultural diversity, and adapt to newer or modern technology in order to be successful and maximize shareholders wealth thus in turn benefits the staff and the community in general. Organizations or facilities has to incorporate person- centered care and promote evidenced- based practice to achieve the best quality of care to the population they serve. The very core problem in an organization is to manage change, Change is continuous, some are predictable and some are unpredictable, it is all up to us to be flexible and adapt to the constant change in order to be competitive in the industry we are in. (Al- Abri, 2007). There will be resistance to change and some will be on board and share with the common goal. For a leader to be able to manage change, and deal with the behavior of the followers, a leader need to have proper evaluation, planning, strategies and interventions to the processes involve in accomplishing the organization’s goals thus maximizing the stakeholders wealth. (Al- Abri, 2007).

Our organization is a 264- bed facility which offers long term, post- acute, and complex care. A Five Star Rated facility, prides itself in offering the highest quality complex medical care with extensive nursing and rehabilitation services offered by our qualified staff of Registered Nurses, Certified Nursing Assistants and Rehabilitation Therapists specializing in the physical, occupational, respiratory and speech fields. We ensure exceptional person- centered quality of care to our residents by complementing our clinical team. The staff works together with residents and their families to tailor a personalized care plan that meets their individualized needs to achieve a successful outcome and to remain competitive in our community. We are surrounded with several other facilities in the area, the reason that we have to constantly re-assess, evaluate our processes and position ourselves strategically to accomplish the goals that we set ourselves, clinically, maintaining the five star rating and increase the revenues as well.

By providing a highly complex care in the area is what makes us different. The specialized care helps minimize their stay and prepares residents to return home or to start a lower level of care, which helps them achieve a greater level of independence. The organization is a recipient of the Bronze Quality Award, a National Quality Award presented to Skilled Nursing Facilities who are committed to Quality and Excellence. Additionally, obtained the accreditation from The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. And also the facility has been acknowledged in the U. S. News and World Report as a High Performing facility. All these accomplishments involves a lot of hard work and team building. The organization’s mission is, “To offer a unique, outcome- based approach to clinical excellence, focused on ensuring a superior, integrated rehabilitation experience for our guests.” We, as a team firmly believe on this, combined with the organization’s values and approach to cultural diversity especially in our area which comprises multiple individuals coming from different walks of life with a common goal of serving the community.

Strategies for Managing Change in Healthcare

The organization is solely own by one stakeholder which makes it easier to communicate and proceed. 

The measure of success and failures of an organization is how they respond to the culture within, the internal and external forces.  (Gleeson, 2018). Internal forces that drive our passion to succeed, as a leader, I strongly promote and encourage our team to stick to our mission at hand. I show by example, through working closely with the interdisciplinary team members and pick up any load if need to. Effectively communicating our tasks that we need to do in a day to day basis. Frequently assessing, evaluating and planning for any changes that needed to move forward with our processes in order to maintain and achieved our goals. Re-assessing our organizational structure is one area that I took pride of, because of the successful implementation and a positive outcome for everyone. We provide continuing education for all disciplines and departments and continuous mentoring with the interdisciplinary team members to stay on track and not to be distracted in the process. Several external forces that motivates the organization to be more competitive are the political aspect of the businesses around us, the technology, we embraced the EHR with ease, and it was fully transitioned from paper. Now we can easily communicate with the hospitals that we are affiliated with, easy access and exchange with patients medical record. Collaborating with our competitors is also one aspect that put us on top of the game. All these strategies indeed helped the organization with increase and maintain patient census thus increasing the revenue (economically).

One driving force

The one driving force that I picked, is an internal force which I believe will have a great impact in the overall organization functionality. I have been with the organization for five years, we did some major changes with staffing and certain functions, but we have not started the organizational structure yet. Organizational structure is what makes the organization, we made it this far without making any changes but with the upcoming changes that CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) have implemented in regard to how the facilities are getting paid, the organization will not survive if we do not make any adjustments with our structure. The organization is very well- known for being over staff, some are functional some are just there making their hours, the efficiency, accuracy and productivity is what I am concerned about. In addition, we also have the highest paid staff most of them have been there for so many years in the company. The reason, complacency and passivity is very common especially accountability is not enforced.

Person-Centered Care and Evidenced-Based Practice

Proposed steps

Changes are always not an easy tasks, the path has been traveled before, a group of individual resisted and some left. It was not a loss, it was just perfect. Timing is key to speak with the CEO, the annual survey just passed and the facility did great, it is the season that our census drops (not good) but sometimes one has to take advantage of this time for a business proposal which ultimately benefits the stakeholder’s interests. A lot of changes in the healthcare industry is happening, we need to make some adjustments to our processes. The following steps will be put into place such as assessment and or evaluation, planning, strategies, create a team with qualified skills who shared the same values, trustworthy, loyal, have the same goals to succeed. Prepare a formal presentation of how the changes will be executed (power point, clear and concise), who are the people involve and their functions, projected positive outcome of the said change and all these will be effectively communicated to the CEO, The CEO of the company appreciates visual and concise examples and also if one relates the proposal on how will it positively affect with the external factors such as our competitors. I am actually incorporating the See, Feel, Change method by Kotter and Cohen, 2002. As a presenter, it has to be emphasize the potential benefits it creates for the organization without jeopardizing the organization’s work processes.

Predictions

Resistance is always expected and part of the process. The familiarity of the follower’s behavior has already been acknowledged and leaders will have to be committed and stay focused on the goals. Positive outcome is the potential result which maximizes the shareholders wealth, which in the end will benefit the entire organization and everyone will take credit of all their accomplishments just like for the past years. In a very short period, the little steps we took to make minor wins and getting all the awards made everyone proud pf their work and appreciate the hard work they had put in. Everyone in the team were very happy and received their bonuses.

Vision

VNRC is committed to provide an individualized person-focused care through the integration of an Evidenced- based practice. And this vision is directly related to our mission as stated above with the common goal of providing a unique experience with our guests or residents. This vision has been discussed with the stakeholder, I just need to re-visit his decision and this class actually helped me a lot in formulating one. I know by doing this, will help us in getting our Silver award in which we already applied. Getting the Silver award is one of our goals to accomplish in the year 2019. It is the little wins that motivates us to push forward and do well with our quality measures and religiously embracing more of the evidenced- based practices

that we will be incorporating in our PLAN- DO- STUDY- ACT in our QAPI (Quality Assurance Performance Improvement) program.

Stakeholder is in full support with the changes and is excited of what the future of the organization brings with all the proposed changes.

Conclusion

VNRC will continue to embrace innovation, adjust to the rapidly evolving healthcare, delivering an evidenced- based patient care and strive for excellence in the healthcare industry.

References

Al- Abri, R. (2007). Managing Change in Healthcare. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3294155/

Gleeson, P. (2018). Internal & External Factors That Affect an Organization. Retrieved from https://smallbusiness.chron.com/internal-external-factors-affect-organization-16641.html

Kotter, P., & Cohen, D. S. (2002). The Heart of Change: Real- Life stories of how people change their organizations. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press.