Implementation, Evaluation, and Sustainability Essay

 Implementation, Evaluation, and Sustainability Essay

Implementation, Evaluation, and Sustainability Essay

Change is a critical component of progressive health care delivery, which leaders and employees should highly regard. It allows health care organizations to address practice gaps and keep on improving as situations necessitate. Addressing practice gaps is instrumental for patient safety and high care quality. However, change implementation is usually challenging. It involves a rigorous process of identifying areas requiring improvement, motivating teams to accept the proposed change, and overcoming barriers. Change agents and stakeholders should also be actively engaged and inspired to support the change. The purpose of this paper is to describe an organizational area that would significantly benefit from initiating change to address an issue in that area.

Issues and Current Outcomes

The network of Dignity Health Care Centers is a non-profit organization committed to promoting healing using modern strategies. Like many other organizations, the human resource department plays a critical role in recruiting, empowering, and sustaining the workforce. It applies techniques such as motivation and performance appraisal to retain employees. However, many issues have emerged in the recent past, mainly after the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. Among many issues, nurse burnout has increased, prompting a change in the strategies used to empower nurses. It is among the issues that require an action plan and change facilitation using a robust framework.

Nurse burnout has negative implications on patient safety, care quality, the health of the health care workforce, and costs. The leading direct outcome is a stressed workforce, primarily due to the emotional and physical burden of caring for COVID-19 patients. Employees’ motivation has declined progressively due to fear, uncertainty, and the work burden involved in managing the current situation. Mollica et al. (2021) further found that emotional and physical exhaustion adversely affects nurses’ mental health. Over time, their passion for the profession declines, leading to nursing turnover. As a result, quick and effective responses are necessary to enable nurses to overcome the problem without compromising their productivity.

Driving Forces, Contributing Issues and People Affected

Nurse burnout is a multifaceted issue. It stems from many factors, and its impacts on processes, outcomes, and people are far-reaching. One of the driving forces is the government’s directive to reduce physical contact to reduce coronavirus transmission. It is a considerable force since it has prompted massive workplace reorganization, affecting workplace relationships and triggering much uncertainty. The COVID-19 pandemic has also increased the number of patients nurses handle every day (Mollica et al., 2021). Unfortunately, nurses have no special training to overcome the increasing pressure in the organization. Motivation and employee retention strategies have not been modified to address the emerging gaps. Regarding the people affected, nurse burnout affects patients adversely due to reduced care quality. Nurses’ physical and mental health declines gradually. Organizational management is also affected since it must devise creative interventions to avoid nurse turnover. Else, a lot of time and money are used in employee recruitment and retention.

Stakeholders Involved and Impacts of the Change Initiative

Successful change cannot be achieved without stakeholder involvement. Stakeholders influence change through support, cooperation, and preparing the organization and staff for the desired change. They also play a critical role in sustaining change. The first stakeholder group involved is the organization’s management. The management’s buy-in is crucial for change initiation and implementation. The change initiative will affect the management and leaders by requiring them to provide the essential resources to drive the change. The other major stakeholder is the human resources manager. Currently, employee retention and motivation are primarily through rewards and performance appraisal. However, such strategies are ineffective in handling nurse burnout. As a result, the proposed change is to adopt more efficient mechanisms, mainly nurse education and resilience training. Alongside change agents and nurse leaders, the human resources manager should develop a robust training program to build nurses’ resilience to enable them to cope with burnout. Nurses are also major stakeholders. They will be required to undergo intensive training on mindfulness and meditation, among other coping strategies.

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Change Leader’s Role and Responsibility and the Leadership Theory

Change leaders carry the vision for change. They envision where the organization will be in terms of productivity and other outcomes if it implements the proposed change. Therefore, my role as a change leader is to sell the idea to the leadership, obtain the necessary support, and implement change as envisioned. I will also help assign roles as required to ensure that the proposed change is implemented successfully. My other obligation is collaborating with the management and selected organizational leaders to design mechanisms to overcome resistance to change. Barriers to change should be identified, and strategies to address them outlined in advance.

Change management involves leading people through change. The current and the targeted outcomes should be explicit. I will use the transformation theory to guide the change process. From a leadership dimension, the transformation theory’s central tenet is working with teams to identify change, create a vision, and execute the change collaboratively (Ferreira et al., 2020). The leader’s primary role is inspiring teams to achieve a shared vision. The other important theory to guide the change process is Lewin’s change management model consisting of three stages: unfreezing, changing, and refreezing. As Hussain et al. (2018) explained, refreezing entails creating a perception that change is needed before moving to the critical step of imparting the desired behavior. Refreezing involves solidifying the norm through effective change sustenance strategies. For instance, resilience training should be adopted as an organizational policy to make a lasting impact.

Required Change Agents

Change implementation is usually complex if the right people are not involved. Support at every level is essential due to the demanding nature of change initiation and management. Suitable change agents to recruit for successful change implementation include the hospital manager, human resource manager, selected colleagues, and an expert trainer. The managers and colleagues will help promote the change to other organizational members to avoid resistance. The main role of expert trainers is to enable employees to learn new skills to cope with nurse burnout.

Change Model

Change implementation should be systematic. A change model has been identified to help implement change in phases while ensuring that all stakeholders and change agents understand the processes and targeted outcomes. The formulated change model consists of five stages: the need for change, approach, implementation, sustenance, and change monitoring. The need for change phase involves specifying the reason and scope of change. The organization’s readiness for change is determined, usually done to assess the probability of implementing the change successfully (Ritchie & Strauss, 2019). The approach phase is primarily about overcoming forces affecting success. Implementation involves an action and communication plan while actualizing the proposed change. Sustaining change entails developing mechanisms to ensure that the change makes a lasting impact. Monitoring involves reviewing the effects of change and improving as situations necessitate.

Potential Barriers to Change and Response Strategies

Organizational change is not a straightforward process. It faces many barriers depending on the type and scope of change. Potential barriers include resistance to change, inadequate resources, and lack of adequate support from change agents. Resistance to change occurs due to comfort in the status quo and uncertainty of the effects of the change (Cho et al., 2021). An effective way of overcoming these barriers is ensuring that stakeholders are actively involved in all stages and understand the proposed change in detail. In this case, they should see the rationale of the intended outcomes. A contingency plan is crucial to deal with emerging or unforeseen circumstances. For instance, a small team can be first trained and other members later in case of a problem with training resources.

Success Evaluation Methods

Change implementation is rigorous and should lead to positive outcomes. Evaluation methods will include a comparative analysis of outcomes and observations. Several metrics will be used to evaluate success. The first quantifiable metric is nurses’ retention rate which can be determined by measuring nurse turnover. A decline in nurse turnover will be an accurate manifestation of successful change. The other metric is reduced complaints and reported cases of issues associated with burnout, such as errors, workplace bullying, and patient dissatisfaction.

Strategies to Anchor Change

Initiating and implementing change requires a massive investment of time, energy, and resources. It is crucial to anchor change to ensure that it has lasting effects. An effective strategy for anchoring change is to have a change evaluation team. Its primary purpose is to evaluate inefficiencies and propose intervention measures. The other feasible strategy is to adopt the proposed change as an organizational policy document. In this case, employee training should be done annually and the required resources allocated towards the same.

Supporting Mission/Goal, Addressing Stakeholder Concerns, and Equitable Contribution

The proposed change aims to create a healthier, empowered, and motivated workforce. Ensuring nurses are more resilient to overcome burnout will help the organization provide quality care and guarantee patient safety as envisioned in its operational framework. Stakeholders, including the management, government, and the community, look forward to an organization able to serve patients professionally, ethically, and diligently. It should provide hope to the patients and provide patient-centered holistic care. Resilient nurses will be better positioned to assess patient problems holistically since they will be healthier mentally and physically (Kim & Change, 2022). The organization will serve as an equitable contribution to the community since patients will get medical assistance when, how, and where needed.

Conclusion

Change is inevitable in the current, fast-paced health practice. To benefit from a change, health care organizations should embrace it positively and support change agents to implement the desired change. As discussed in this paper, the change agent’s primary role is to sell the vision to the stakeholders, including organizational managers, nurse leaders, and health care staff. A change model is also necessary to implement change systematically and in phases as situations oblige.

References

Cho, Y., Kim, M., & Choi, M. (2021). Factors associated with nurses’ user resistance to change of electronic health record systems. BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, 21(1), 1-12. https://dx.doi.org/10.1186%2Fs12911-021-01581-z

Ferreira, V. B., Amestoy, S. C., Silva, G. T. R. D., Trindade, L. D. L., Santos, I. A. R. D., &Varanda, P. A. G. (2020). Transformational leadership in nursing practice: Challenges and strategies. RevistaBrasileira de Enfermagem, 73(6): e20190364. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/0034-7167-2019-0364

Hussain, S. T., Lei, S., Akram, T., Haider, M. J., Hussain, S. H., & Ali, M. (2018). Kurt Lewin’s change model: A critical review of the role of leadership and employee involvement in organizational change. Journal of Innovation & Knowledge, 3(3), 123-127. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jik.2016.07.002

Kim, E. Y., & Chang, S. O. (2022).Exploring nurse perceptions and experiences of resilience: a meta-synthesis study. BMC Nursing, 21(1), 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cnre.2017.03.004

Mollica, R. F., &Fricchione, G. L. (2021).Mental and physical exhaustion of health-care practitioners. The Lancet, 398(10318), 2243-2244. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(21)02663-5

Ritchie, L. M. P., & Straus, S. E. (2019). Assessing organizational readiness for change: comment on” development and content validation of a transcultural instrument to assess Organizational Readiness for Knowledge Translation in Healthcare Organizations: The OR4KT”. International Journal of Health Policy and Management, 8(1), 55-57. https://dx.doi.org/10.15171%2Fijhpm.2018.101

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Assessment Description
You will utilize your change model for this assignment. Review the feedback submitted by your instructor on your previous change model assignment. Make any changes or modifications necessary for the submission of this assignment.

Evaluate the performance of your organization or department. Identify an area that would significantly benefit from initiating a change. Write a paper (1,500-1,750 words) in which you describe the particular area you propose to address through a change initiative. Include the following for your company:

1. Discuss the issues in this area and the current outcomes as a result of the issues.
2. Describe the external and/or internal driving forces, contributing issues, and the people affected.
3. Evaluate the stakeholders involved and discuss how they will be affected by your change initiative.
4. Clarify your role and responsibility as a change leader. Discuss the leadership theory (or theories) you will use to guide the change process.
5. Discuss the change agents you need to recruit in order to successfully implement your change. Describe the roles of these change agents.
6. Utilize your change model to develop strategies: (a) Explain the relevance of this model to your organization; and (b) Present the strategic aspects using your model. Be sure to clearly define the purpose of each aspect, the people involved, and the actions that need to be taken.
7. Identify, or predict, the potential barriers to change. Discuss possible ways to overcome these obstacles, including methods for dealing with emerging or unforeseen circumstances that could impede implementation.
8. Describe the evaluation methods you will use to determine the level of success of your change initiative. Discuss what metrics or measurable determinates you will use.
9. Propose strategies to anchor change or support continuous change.
10. Establish how your change plan supports the organizational mission/goal, genuinely addresses stakeholder concerns, and will serve as an equitable contribution for the community or society overall.

Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.

This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.

You are required to submit this assignment to LopesWrite. A link to the LopesWrite technical support articles is located in Class Resources if you need assistance.

Rubric:
The Need for Change
25 points
Driving Forces
12.5 points
Stakeholder Evaluation
12.5 points
The Role of the Leader in the Change Initiative
25 points
Change Agents and Roles
25 points
Application of the Change Model to Develop Strategies (B)
25 points
Overcoming Barriers to Change (B)
25 points
Evaluation Methods
25 points
Strategies for Sustaining Change
12.5 points
Overall Effectiveness of Change Plan
12.5 points
Thesis Development and Purpose
7.5 points
Argument Logic and Construction
12.5 points
Mechanics of Writing (includes spelling, punctuation, grammar, and language use)
12.5 points
Paper Format (use of appropriate style for the major and assignment)
5 points
Documentation of Sources
12.5 points

Total 250 points