Implementing Change in a Healthcare Organization

Changes are an integral part of the functioning of any organization, regardless of whether they were caused by external or internal factors. Thus, medical institutions are no exception, and change management is of critical importance to them. The hospital identified a problem that the nurse manager needs to solve in order to maintain the quality level of the medical organization. Therefore, this scientific paper aims to study the presented issue and find a way to solve it using Lewin’s Change Model for quality improvement of hospital-acquired infection.

Further, the main problem that stimulated the creation of a quality improvement process in a medical institution was a two-times increase in hospital-acquired infection rates from last year. Therefore, the main fiscal contribution of this problem was an increase in spending on several indicators at once. One of them was an increase in the number of patients who needed help, and the other was the expenses that the company incurred to detect infection, combat it and implement measures to return the proper quality of service. The physical contribution is that with the increase in the number of infected, the working hours of workers have increased. Because of this, there is increased fatigue, burnout, and in critical cases, the dismissal of medical personnel.

These circumstances necessitate the introduction of a new strategy in a medical institution. Consequently, the chosen model for conducting the study, called Lewin’s Change Model, implies several stages. The three steps that need to be followed include unfreezing, change, and refreezing. In the first stage, the staff of the institution is being prepared for changes (Tang, 2019). Research shows that “this stage will increase the group behaviors for change or to increase the leader’s pressure for change at higher level” (Hussain et al., 2018, p. 124). At this stage, in addition to the study of the initial state of the medical organization, all personnel will also be informed. This will include spreading awareness about new anti-infectious protection methods and rules for working with patients. It is also necessary to create such conditions so that the changes occur most comfortably and do not lead to the loss of employees.

Next, there is a stage of changes, which implies the direct implementation of the proposed transformations. This process will take place gradually and with constant monitoring. It is necessary to make sure that everyone complies with the new rules to avoid a repeated increase in the rates of spread of infectious diseases. The last stage is refreezing, where the implemented changes are fixed. Hence, for three months, the managers of the organization should conduct checks on how effectively the new strategy has taken root in the medical institution. If problems arise, it will be necessary to carry out some alterations in the program, and the main thing is that they are done in a timely manner (Irimias, 2021). A special role is also played by the process improvement model, which needs to be developed to track how much staff is engaged in new activities.

In conclusion, this work considered the changes that should be implemented in a medical organization. The leading cause of the problems was an increase in the rates of infectious diseases that patients acquired directly in the hospital. The development of the action plan was carried out with the help of Lewin’s Change Model, as it helps to better identify the steps for implementation due to its three-step structure.

References

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. Web.

Irimias, T. (2021). Measuring and monitoring change in a strategic business context. Considerations on the role of organizations’ composition elements. CES Working Papers, 13(2), 159-180.

Tang, K. N. (2019). Leadership and change management. Springer.