Organizational Change

Organizational change plan 1

In health care organizational change occurs as a response to changing market interests, to streamline production, cut costs, or improves quality of care. It is imperative also to understand that in health care organizations changes occur as a response to government and its agencies policies (Van Woerkum, Aarts, & de Grip, 2007). Introduction of Rapid Response Teams (RRT) is one of recommended healthcare initiatives of the government agencies, i.e., Joint Commission and Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research to minimize costs, prevent complications, improve quality of life, and enhancement of positive patient outcomes in health care. RRT cannot be successful without the support of the entire organization, which requires change process (Unknown, 2007). Therefore, planning, implementation, and success of the RRT depends on the organizations strategic planning efforts, which will depend subsequently on the leadership ability to track the progress of change and assess the degree of readiness and resistance to change (Armenakis, Harris, & Mossholder, 2003)

Need for Organizational Proposed Change

Some cardiopulmonary arrests occurring in hospitals are not preventable and can happen without any warning signs. Many studies conclude that 70% of adverse outcomes related to medical management are preventable. Introduction of Rapid Response Teams was in response to prevent preventable disabilities and deaths in hospitals, which also attributes to unnecessary intensive care admission and hospital costs (Butner, 2011). Activation of rapid response signal depends on an individual nurse intuition, which can be a dicey situation because what alarms one nurse cannot be the case with a different nurse. Therefore, implementation of effective RRT requires set guidelines protocol that the organization will put in place regarding when should the stakeholders call for the team and also the guidelines regarding who should respond to the call.

This is a struggle in my organization. Initially a critical care nurse and a nurse administrator were the only members of the multidisciplinary team to respond to rapid response call. The change requires the response of the entire multidisciplinary team, which includes a Critical care Nurse, Nurse Administrator, Respiratory therapist, Hospitalist, and an electro-cardiograph technician. However, there have been inconsistences regarding the turn up, which requires education, training, and introduction of new protocols.

Organizational and Individual Barriers to Proposed Change

Organizational Barriers

Organizational barriers include lack of organizational protocols, which will compel required personnel to respond to rapid response. There was suggested change that members of the multi-disciplinary team should respond but there is no policy that states that. Therefore, some members will respond and some will wait up until the critical care nurse summon for help. According to Borkowski (2005) one of organizational barriers is poor leadership. In this case poor leadership and administration failed to put necessary protocols in place.

Individual Barriers

Real or perceived stress, reduction in personal need fulfillment, and loss of personal comfort zone causes individual barriers to change. In the past House Officers and Respiratory therapists did not have a mandate to respond to a rapid response call unless it is a cardiac arrest code summon. To them responding to a rapid response call is a waste of time because some of the time the call turns to be a falls alarm or a mere panic. This change is perceived as another attempt to disrupt their already busy schedule to attend to petty situations.

Identified Factors Influencing the Proposed Change

According to Roethlisberger as stated in Borkowski (2005) factors that influence change process are individual's attitudes toward proposed change in structure or status quo, which means that positivity or negativity of a person's response will determine if the response will be for or against change. Personal attitudes attribute to personal history, which is cumulative work experience and social forces, which is social position at workplace.

Factors Influencing Organizational Readiness for the Proposed Change

"Readiness is the cognitive precursor to the behaviors of either resistance to, or support for, a change effort" (Armenaki, Harris, & Mossholder, 1993, p. 681). Creating readiness involves proactive attempts to change beliefs, attitudes, and intentions by a change agent to influence change within the organization. It is imperative that the organization extends beyond individual cognitions to include social aspect because sometimes individual's readiness for change depends on the readiness of others. Therefore, the organizational change should focus on the collective behavior, individual-level cognitive change, mass communications, social-information processing, and organizational change literatures

Beckhard and Harris theoretical model

According to Beckhard and Harris theory of organizational change, Organizations at some point will undergo a state where the bureaucracies in terms of the management structure and style are no longer acceptable. Therefore, either internal or external environment demands the organizational system change. This adaptation process requires