Benchmark – Change Initiative: Implementation, Evaluation, and Sustainability
Benchmark – Change Initiative: Implementation, Evaluation, and Sustainability
Change is a continuous and constant process in organizations due to the dynamic nature of the market forces and business environment. It is necessary to initiate change in an organization when the business strategies are no longer working or unexpected changes have occurred in order to maintain a competitive edge and remain relevant in the market. I work in a healthcare institution which has a 234 bed capacity with estimated 950 health professionals. I work in the Obstetrics/Gynecology department and the institution uses paper-based medical records in all its department. The hospital would benefit from the changes in replacing paper-based health records with modern technology which embrace Electronic Medical Records (EMR).Benchmark – Change Initiative: Implementation, Evaluation, and Sustainability
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Challenges and Outcomes due to the Use of Paper-Based Records
Usage of paper-based health records in the hospital has had adverse effects on the service delivery and patients’ health outcomes. One of the challenges posed by use of paper-based medical records is difficulty in retrieval and portability. Paper-based health records are voluminous and occupy huge space which makes it hard to sort and retrieve the records needed. Retrieving patients’ medical files consume time and slows down service delivery (Allen, 2016). Staff may find the manual process of document retrieval exhausting and may fail to search for critical records needed in the patient’s treatment lowering the quality of care. Patients with terminal illness and complex medical conditions often have large medical records which makes sharing of information among the health professionals challenging. Some insurance companies and specialists may require copies of a patients records sent to them. Sending manual records is costly, time consuming, may delay diagnosis and treatment. Manual records affect the productivity of the departments since only one department can access a patient’s file at a time. Therefore, the departments are forced to access the patient’s record one at a time which reduces efficiency (Baloh et al., 2018). Manual health records pose a more security threat and breach of patient’s information system compared to electronic records because they are accessed by many users and it is hard to limit their access. Health professionals spend time to prepare, process and update the manual medical records. If the process was electronic, the time consumed would have been used to focus and improve on patient experiences and outcomes. Sometimes, the hospital has experienced cases where manual records become adulterated due to tear, spills, earmarks, and smudges. This makes some of the records illegible resulting to more time being spent trying to comprehend and explain the missing record.
External and Internal Driving Forces
External and internal forces will drive the need for changing from the manual medical records to Electronic Based Records. External forces include political forces, government legislation, market forces, and technological factors. The federal and state governments often provide the policies and guidelines governing the running of hospitals, improvement in the quality of services offered, boost in patient outcomes, and provision of affordable medical care. The state governments have been recommending the adoption of EMR to improve service delivery (Wensing et al., 2020). The market forces have driven many healthcare institutions to adopt EMR as a way of improving quality of services, customer experience and to remain competitive. Therefore, the market forces are favorable to adopt EMR system. Technological advancement has led to development of EMR system to improve service delivery. Adoption of EMR system by the hospital will be supported by the changes in technology (Baloh et al., 2018). The internal forces that will drive the change include in the management of health records include low client satisfaction due to the time consumed in record retrieval, and the introduction of new mission which aims at improving patient outcomes, service delivery and profitability.
Stakeholders Involved in the Change Initiative
The introduction and implementation of EMR system will involve several stakeholders who will affect or by affected by it. The main stakeholders will be the health professionals, other administrative employees, board of management, the supplier of EMR system, and the information technology (IT) staff. The health professional staff and administrative staff are necessary stakeholders as they will be the system users to input patients’ demographic, contact, and billing information. They will experience the change of moving from the manual medical records to EMR as they will have to learn a new system and be trained on how to use it (Wensing et al., 2020). The IT staff will be affected by the system as they will provide support during and after the system implementation. The supplier of EMR system will be involved during its installation and training staff on how to use it. The board of management will be affected by the staff as they will have to revise the organizational policies to suit the installation of a new system. They will have to set aside funds for system installation. All the stakeholders will be affected by change initiative to EMR system as they will have to embrace it and learn to use it.Benchmark – Change Initiative: Implementation, Evaluation, and Sustainability
Role and Responsibility as a Change Leader
My role as a change leader will be to sponsor and advocate for the change to EMR systems and use my influence to convince the management and other stakeholders on the need for change. I will act as a role model by demonstrating the behaviors and attitudes attributing to the change process. Employees watch out on the leaders to see if their actions and words demonstrate ongoing change. I will also be involved in decision making with other board members concerning resources and budget needed for the change implementation (Chappell et al., 2016). I will communicate often and share information, feedback, and listen to employees in my department concerning the change process. I will also motivate, show commitment and passion to the change process. I will be accountable for the change process by solving problems and removing obstacles to the change process (Luszczynska, 2020). By so doing, staff will be motivated to undertake and implement the change initiative. I will the transformative leadership theory to guide the change process. Through transformative leadership, leaders will work with employees as teams to identify the change required, form a vision to inspire the change and execute it in tandem. The leaders will motivate employees to come up with innovate and creative ideas to implement EMR system.
Change Agents
To implement the change replacement of manual medical records to EMR system, change agents will need to be recruited to implement the change. The change agents will be both external and internal. External change agents recruited will be ICT professionals and a behavioral scientist who will work as consultants to devise the change process. ICT consultants will help the organization in choosing the best EMR system to suit its needs while behavioral scientist will help the employees in adjust to the change process. Internal change agents will be employees selected from the different departments in the organization (Grol & Wensing, 2020). They will be continuously engaged in the change process and will be trained by the consultants on the change strategy. The role of the change agents will be to investigate the reasons that might prevent change and find way of mitigating them (Chappell et al., 2016). The change agents will advocate for the changes, encourage other employees by listening and giving them feedback, and facilitate the change process by clarifying all queries that may arise. In addition, the change agents will mediate on the opposing priorities and manage the conflict that may arise. They will also be expected to advise other employees regarding the change process and ensure that goals, targets and deadlines are met.
Change Model and its Relevance
The change to EMR systems will be anchored on Kotter’s change model. This model will be relevant in this change initiative as it will provide a guideline on the change process, the activities to be undertaken and the role and responsibility of each member (Allen, 2016). Through the change model, the change leader will create a sense of urgency on the change process, build a team to guide the change process, create a strategic plan on how to implement change, plan a list of people who will be responsible for change activities, remove obstacles that may hinder change, establish ways of motivating the members, building on the changes and instituting it to the organizational culture (Baloh et al., 2018).
Potential Barriers to Change
Potential barriers that may limit the implementation of EMR system are limited understanding of the change process and its need, scarce resources, resistance to change in organizational culture and policies, negative employee attitudes, inadequate management support, poor communication and lack of involvement in the change process. To overcome these barriers, change leader and agents will need to communicate to all stakeholders why change is needed. The change leader should convince the management on the need for system change to have their support (Grol & Wensing, 2020). Next, the board of management will allocate the resources needed to effect the change process. All employees will be involved at all stages in the change process to ensure that they understand and support it. This will ensure that they have a positive attitude towards the change process. Prompt communication and feedback will be given to ensure that all the stakeholders are aware of everything transpiring in the change initiative and implementation.Benchmark – Change Initiative: Implementation, Evaluation, and Sustainability
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Evaluation Methods to Determine Success Levels
Qualitative and quantitative evaluation methods will be used in the measurement of the change management performance. The qualitative evaluation methods will assess the level of stakeholder satisfaction while quantitative methods will access the project cost, time, quality, and performance against the project schedule, plan and budget (Luszczynska, 2020). The metrics to be used to determine success levels will be attributed to the exact activities carried out by the team managing the change process. By tracking activities against the change plan, it will be easier to assess the success level of the change initiative. Other metrics will include training participation and attendance numbers, key performance indicators, progress reports, adherence to project plan, communication effectiveness, return on investment, and adherence to set timelines.
Strategies to Anchor Change
To succeed in the change management process, it is essential to have proper strategies in place that will be used to support and anchor it. The first strategy will be planning carefully on how the change process will be implemented and ensuring all resources needed are availed (Grol & Wensing, 2020). The second strategy is frequent communication and maintaining transparency to help the employees understand the process and its impact. Creation of a roadmap is another strategy by helping the employees understand the organizational changes, how the change will affect business and the need for the new business model. The last strategy is to provide training, invite participation in the change process and providing constant feedback to keep employees updated.
How Change Initiative Supports Organizational Change
The change plan to adopt EMR system supports the organizational goals of embracing new technological advancement. The hospital has been seeking to improve service delivery through prompt information access and document retrieval. In the past, there have been delays in accessing patients’ records. Adoption of EMR will meet the organizational goal as it will allow health professionals to easily access patients’ records, provide accurate information regarding a patient at the point of care, and maintain confidentiality of patients’ information by ensuring they are accessed by the authorized personnel (Wensing et al., 2020). Stakeholders may be concerned by loss of data in the migration to the new system and cost of implementing the EMR system. The stakeholders’ concerns will be addressed by assuring them that proper migration of data will be done to mitigate any loss. The EMR system will be procured competitively to ensure it is cost effective. The change process will serve as an equitable contribution to the community because it will improve the health outcomes of patients and service delivery.Benchmark – Change Initiative: Implementation, Evaluation, and Sustainability
References
Allen, B. (2016). Effective design, implementation and management of change in healthcare. Nursing Standard, 31(3).
Baloh, J., Zhu, X., & Ward, M. M. (2018). Implementing team huddles in small rural hospitals: How does the Kotter model of change apply?. Journal of nursing management, 26(5), 571-578.
Chappell, S., Pescud, M., Waterworth, P., Shilton, T., Roche, D., Ledger, M., & Rosenberg, M. (2016). Exploring the process of implementing healthy workplace initiatives: mapping to Kotter’s leading change model. Journal of occupational and environmental medicine, 58(10), e341-e348.
Grol, R., & Wensing, M. (2020). Effective implementation of change in healthcare: a systematic approach. Improving Patient Care: The implementation of change in health care, 45-71.
Luszczynska, A. (2020). It’s time for effectiveness-implementation hybrid research on behaviour change. Health Psychology Review, 14(1), 188-192.
Wensing, M., Grol, R., & Grimshaw, J. (Eds.). (2020). Improving patient care: the implementation of change in health care. Wiley-Blackwell. Benchmark – Change Initiative: Implementation, Evaluation, and Sustainability