Change Initiative: Implementation, Evaluation, and Sustanability
Benchmark - Change Initiative: Implementation, Evaluation, and Sustainability
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:
Discuss the issues in this area and the current outcomes as a result of the issues.
Describe the external and/or internal driving forces, contributing issues, and the people affected.
Evaluate the stakeholders involved and discuss how they will be affected by your change initiative.
Clarify your role and responsibility as a change leader. Discuss the leadership theory (or theories) you will use to guide the change process.
Discuss the change agents you need to recruit in order to successfully implement your change. Describe the roles of these change agents.
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.
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.
Describe the evaluation methods you will use to determine the level of success of your change initiative. Discuss what metrics or measureable determinates you will use.
Propose strategies to anchor change or support continuous change.
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.
Change Initiative: Implementation, Evaluation
Latonya JonesLDR 615Dr. GriffenJanuary 22, 2020
The Need For Change
Learning and development coordinators in hospitals have always delivered training programs covering issues such as clinical competency and compliance. Although such training programs are important, many Western countries have experienced an influx of immigrants in the last few decades. In the United States, whites will become a minority by 2050, as expected. Vincent and Velkoff (1010) indicate that in states such as Texas, California, Arizona, and Florida, that tipping point will be achieved as early as 2025. In response to this increasing cultural diversity, the weekly communication training session at Woodley Healthcare Center will be replaced by Cultural Awareness Sessions that seek to enhance nurses' cultural competencies working in the emergency department. This change aims to help nurses evaluate their own cultural beliefs and reduce the risk of imposing unethical care on patients through ethnocentric assessment.
Driving Forces
The major external force that necessitates the adoption of Cultural Awareness Sessions is the increasing number of people of color in the United States. Since people of color face enduring and unique health challenges, nurses in the emergency department can only deliver quality care if they are aware of various cultural backgrounds. Internal forces include quality and cost concerns. In part, some of the unnecessary costs incurred by hospitals are driven by nurses' use of sophisticated medical technology when they cannot relate to the cultural beliefs of patients (Montenery et al., 2013). On the other hand, quality concerns increase the readmission rate, thus harming the hospital's standing in the community. Implementing the proposed change will positively affect nurses and patients. This change can relieve some of the fear and anxiety experienced by nurses when handling patients with different cultures. Equally, the successful implementation of the proposed change will improve communication between nurses and patients, thus reducing the latter's risk of not adhering to prescription.
Evaluation of Stakeholders
A change process's success is tied to the actors involved, including their awareness of the change, personal engagement, and ownership of the change process (Stouten and Cremer, 2018). In this case, the proposed change's success depends on three types of stakeholders: nurses, patients, and the learning and development coordinator. The cultural background of people is rooted in traditions that have been practiced for centuries. However, with globalization becoming a significant part of people's lives, certain aspects of culture have changed. As a result, nurses will have to spend at least 4 to 5 hours every week examining and agreeing on how to interact with various patients. In each session, the learning and development coordinator will provide discussion prompts, identify cultural areas that nurses should concentrate on, and present the change program's progress to the management. Lastly, patients, especially those of color, will be asked to fill assessment forms after interacting with nurses. The feedback on the assessment forms will be used to evaluate the cultural competence of each nurse.
Role of the Change Leader
Promoting change requires the change leader to challenge established norms and habits and replace them with better alternatives. Under the proposed change, nurses are only effective in communicating with patients if they recognize and react appropriately to beliefs that differ considerably from theirs. Therefore, in the process of undertaking Cultural Awareness Sessions, the change leader will be responsible for;
* Formulating a vision and activities that will guide nurses while engaging in Cultural Awareness Sessions
* Rewarding nurses who depict cultural competence while interacting with patients encourages others to follow suit.
* Identifying barriers that each nurse might be facing and providing the appropriate solution.
* Since the emergency department is the short-term goal, the change leader will also be responsible for documenting the lessons learned before implementing the change in other hospital departments.
Matters relating to the culture of nurses and patients are sensitive and cannot be forced upon people. As a result, the change leader will exercise transformational leadership to establish confidence and trust before and during the change process. Since nurses are highly trained individuals, they will be allowed to engage in open-ended discussions during Cultural Awareness Sessions without micromanaging. This leadership style will give nurses more room to be creative and address cultural problems that were not anticipated.
Change Agents
Implementing the change process is challenging and requires highly-skilled individuals to steer the organization through uncertainty (Pascale and Sternin, 2005). In this case, the lead/charge nurse and the physicians in the emergency department will be the change agents in the undertaking of Cultural Awareness Sessions and the actual application of the learned cultural competencies. Although lead/charge nurses and physicians are more technically knowledgeable than nurses, they are appointed to be change agents because they had experienced the disruptions of change since they were around when Woodley Healthcare moved from patients' paper charts to Electronic Health Records. The lead/charge nurse will be tasked with leading Cultural Awareness Sessions and observing how nurses communicate with patients when they arrive in the emergency department. The physicians will observe and advise nurses when communicating with patients in wards and while administering medication. To reinforce the importance of the change agents' role, part of the performance of the lead/charge nurse and physicians will be based on the success of the Cultural Awareness Sessions and the actual application of the learned cultural competen...