NURS 8302 Evaluating and Sustaining Change

The healthcare system is constantly changing, and the demands of quality care are on the rise; hospitals strive to improve performance and patient safety. With this comes immense change and quality improvement (Murphree et al., 2011). Organizational changes in health care are more likely to succeed when health care professionals can influence the difference, feel prepared for the change, and recognize the value of the change, including perceiving the benefit of the shift for patients (Nilsen et al., 2020). Continuous professional education has become increasingly important to ensure that health care professionals’ competencies keep pace with current standards and to maintain and enhance the knowledge and skills needed to stay abreast of the newest evidence (Nilsen et al., 2020). Continuous improvement is a systematic, sustainable approach to enhancing the quality of care and patient outcomes that embraces practice change which is an ongoing journey in healthcare that requires commitment and persistence under effective leadership. (KPMG,2019).

One of the challenges during this change process is sustaining practice change which requires robust and effective leadership to maintain a practical improvement (Bigelow et al., 2010). It is important to note that continuous improvement is driven and owned by frontline staff, reinforced by specialized, ongoing training, and supported by the entire organization starting with the board and the chief executive and permeating everywhere from the finance and human resources and information technology departments. Moreover, change must be underpinned by the right leadership behaviors with transformational leadership skills because such leaders support, mentor, and ask questions about the change process. Transformational leaders are successful leaders who possess certain qualities such as being a good change manager that promotes teamwork, guides staff through any transition period, identify support systems and possible barriers, and enabling tools needed to strengthen and support nurses during quality and safety movement (Richardson & Storr, 2010).

According to Bigelow et al. (2010), many strategies exist for leaders to promote and sustain quality improvement, such as providing visual control, control charts, daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly accountability processes. These strategies support the quality movement, provide bedside nurses with oversight and support of their daily practice. Similarly, nurse leaders can also utilize the Lean Six Sigma model in quality improvement because the model relies on a collaborative team effort in improving performance by systematically eliminating waste to maximize workflow (Bigelow et al., 2010). Finally, Leaders can also apply models such as the National health service (NHS) sustainability model in sustaining quality improvement changes because it assists them in implementing change, increasing the quality of care, and promoting a positive patient experience while reducing health care costs (Silver et al., 2016).

References

Bigelow, L., Wolkowski, C., Baskin, L., & Gorko, M. (2010). Lean Six Sigma: Sustaining the gains in a hospital laboratory. Clinical Leadership & Management Review, 24(3), 1–14.

KPMG International Healthcare Practices. (2019). Creating a culture of excellence. https://assets.kpmg/content/dam/kpmg/xx/pdf/2019/03/

Nilsen, P., Seeing, I., Erickson, C., Birken, S. A., and Schildmeijer, K. (2020). Characteristics of successful changes in health care organizations: an interview study with physicians, registered nurses, and assistant nurses. Biomedical Central health services Research. 20:147 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-020-4999-8

Murphree, P., Vath, R. R., & Daigle, L. (2011). Sustaining lean six sigma projects in health care. Physician Executive, 37(1), 44–48.

Richardson, A., & Storr, J. (2010). Patient safety: A literature review on the impact of nursing

empowerment, leadership, and collaboration [corrected] [published erratum appears in

INT NURS REV (1):158]. International Nursing Review, 57(1), 12–21.

Silver, S. A., McQuillan, R., Harel, A., Weizman, A. W., Thomas, A., Nesrallah, G., Bell, C.

M., Chan, C. T., & Chertow, G. M. (2016). How to Sustain Change and Support

Continuous Quality Improvement. Clinical Journal of the American Society of

Nephrology, 11(5), 916-924.

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This is insightful. There are constant changes in the healthcare system due to the increased demands of patients. The changes are always meant to enhance quality of healthcare services delivered and to meet the growing demands of patients (Nilsen et al., 2020). Every healthcare institution is involved in the improvement of levels of performance and patient safety. As a result, there are always immense changes and quality improvement (Lumbers, 2018). Effective or successful change processes requires transformative leadership that is able to take care of all the processes or approaches to change. There are different strategies that leaders can use to promote and sustain change process including the provision of visual control, control charts that elaborate on some of the best mechanisms, and the accountability processes (KPMG International Healthcare Practices, 2019). Additionally, leaders may act as role models to change people’s perception towards change or quality improvement processes. These strategies support the quality movement, provide bedside nurses with oversight and support of their daily practice.

References

Lumbers, M. (2018). Approaches to leadership and managing change in the NHS. British Journal of Nursing, 27(10), 554-558. https://www.magonlinelibrary.com/doi/abs/10.12968/bjon.2018.27.10.554

KPMG International Healthcare Practices. (2019). Creating a culture of excellence. https://assets.kpmg/content/dam/kpmg/xx/pdf/2019/03/

Change is something that every organization requires at some point. Changes in technology, lives, perceptions, and beliefs contributed to this. The outcome of the change process might be either positive or negative (Kotter, 2021). All an organization needs to do to avoid negative consequences is understand and properly employ change management in partnership with change leadership, ensuring that all change requirements are completed before and during the change process. Change management refers to a set of tools and procedures that must be in place to keep change efforts in check (Holten et al., 2019). The major purpose is to mitigate the negative effects of change. It’s a method of implementing massive changes in an organization while remaining sensible and in control. A perfect example occurred in my company during a raw materials shortage. The problem arose due to the company’s rapid change of chairman, and the new management decided that for the company to continue, it needed to transform its structure and operations. On the other hand, change leadership examines the forces driving change, as well as the vision and procedures that support more significant transformative changes (Holten et al., 2019). It is most commonly connected with introducing an engine into the entire change process to make it more efficient, faster, and more so in large-scale conversions.

The health care setting is dynamic due to constant changes to improve efficiency, quality of care, and patient safety. Leadership is needed to push these goals, ensure that the set goal and target are met, and enhance sustained change in the organization (Chartier et al., 2018). Leadership is required to evaluate and sustain change by navigating the complex web depicted by the different disease areas, multidirectional plans, and staff within the health care setting. Furthermore, some employees may resist the new changes as a result of experiencing poor past management. Leadership is needed to communicate the need for change, engage employees in decision-making, and mobilize necessary support for the change (Chartier et al., 2018). The leaders are required to provide the correct direction and motivate employees to improve and innovate continuously. An organization should not stop measuring change. Measuring change is critical in determining and communicating the success and acceptance of the implemented process.it also helps determine whether the persons influenced by the change are progressing towards the required direction (Sipes, 2021).

REFERENCES

Chartier, L. B., Vaillancourt, S., Cheng, A. H. Y., & Stang, A. S. (2018). Quality improvement primer part 3: Evaluating and sustaining a quality improvement project in the emergency department. CJEM, 21(2), 261–268. https://doi.org/10.1017/cem.2018.380

Holten, A. L., Hancock, G. R., & Bøllingtoft, A. (2019). Studying the importance of change leadership and change management in layoffs, mergers, and closures. Management Decision, 58(3), 393–409. https://doi.org/10.1108/md-03-2017-0278

Kotter. (2021, May 7). The 8-Step Process for Leading Change. https://www.kotterinc.com/8-steps-process-for-leading-change/

Sipes, C. (2020). Project management for the advanced practice nurse. http://dl1.tarjomac.ir/nursing-ebooks/TPC202202.pdf

This is insightful Sonji, change is an essential part of the organizational process. Most of the organizations undertake change processes to enhance the quality of services and to adjust to the new changes in the industry (Chartier et al., 2018). In healthcare organizations, change processes are always undertaken to ensure quality improvements in the healthcare processes. The health care setting is dynamic due to constant changes to improve efficiency, quality of care, and patient safety (Augustsson et al., 2019). Successful change process requires dynamic or transformative leadership capable of changing the perception of the entire people to adhere to the change process. Transformative leaders have the capability of ensuring that everyone participate towards the change process (Holten et al., 2019). Leaders are also able to develop policies that encourage everyone to contribute to the change process. In general effective leadership is always needed to push for goals, thereby ensuring that set goals and targets are met. Besides effective leadership, change process also require effective communication processes that encourage collaboration.

References

Augustsson, H., Churruca, K., & Braithwaite, J. (2019). Re-energising the way we manage change in healthcare: the case for soft systems methodology and its application to evidence-based practice. BMC health services research, 19(1), 1-11. https://bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12913-019-4508-0

NURS 8302 Evaluating and Sustaining Change