Hcs 584 Organizational Change Plan

Organizational Change Plan
Kimberly J. Seger RN, BSN
HCS/587
March 18, 2013
Dr. Sonnia Oliva

Organizational Change Plan
Looking at a health care system as a whole, one should look at the advantages and disadvantages that system could give them. If I were to change one thing at the organization I work at, I would implement transitioning from paper charting to using Electronic Medical Records, or EMR to the system as a whole. Change is never easy for anyone let alone a huge corporation. It takes time, money, and employees to make this change successful.
Need for Change Paper charting is currently being used at my place of employment. When I moved over to this new position I couldn’t believe that I saw them still using paper charts.
When a patient calls in to receive their lab results, we as a coordinator, have to get up, away from our desk and phone and retrieve their record from the shelves and then look for the result. When we do receive the lab results, we then have to document them in our paper chart opening the door for mistakes and errors. This can be a hassle and time consuming. When a physician comes to speak to us about a particular patient, the paper chart again comes out, and we collectively have to comb through the large chart to hopefully find what they were looking for. Medicine has come a long way from where we have started, but in a way, we are still way behind. According to Laing (2002):
The use of an electronic medical record (EMR) has the potential to lower operating costs by using an accepted, standardized language that will provide consistent documentation, reduce errors, eliminate duplication, and reliance on workers’ memory. Another benefit of the EMR is increased efficiency by improving workflow, access to the patient record, and elimination of physical storage of records.
Barriers
Organizational Barriers When making any change within an organization, the organization needs to prepare themselves for barriers to the proposed change. Some barriers within the organization could be undefined goals and objectives, miscommunication, lack of resources, culture, and lack of resources. Undefined goals and objectives from the organizations leaders can put the successful change in jeopardy. It is necessary for all the goals to be in place and have the end goal for everyone to see so that the team as a whole knows what the end result it. When the change is ready the employees will look to management for insight and if they do not have a clear vision of the goals and objectives, then this will set up the change for failure. Leaders should clarify continually the goals and objectives of the change, outlining roles and specifying performance standards for the employees. According to Rosenberg and Mosca (2011), “Leadership, culture, structure, and the related organizational factors can undermine successful change”. Executives of the organization should be looking after these financial and environmental issues throughout the change process.
Insufficient communication between the stakeholders and the employees would have a negative impact on the change with disorganization, and will cause the change to be unsuccessful. Management may have a set of protocols for employees to adhere to perform the new change; otherwise the culture of the organization can strongly resist changing as employees become too familiar with the current way of doing things. The worst thing that could happen to a company who is trying to invoke change, especially one as big as changing from paper charting to EMR, would be running out of resources. The lack of resources could be due to a variety of factors. Bad resource allocation could occur when managers make bad decisions in allocating resources such as money, time, machinery and staff.
Individual Barriers
Coming from an area where EMR was implemented, paper charting seems like the dark ages.
Right now if there is any mention of changing to EMR, the more seasoned staff shuts down and looks away in disgust and doesn’t even want to hear the positive things about EMR. News of any change can invoke fear amongst employees. Employees may feel afraid of not being able to fulfill the new proposed changes to work practices that are being asked of them. Employees may begin to question the future of their job, which shall cause negative feedback on the proposed change. This fear of the unknown may lead to anxiety and added stress to the employee and will further lead to resistance. Individuals tend to resist change where they are not part of change. Staff involvement and understanding of the change is key and necessary for the change to be successful. If the staff feels that they are part of the change, there is a more positive chance that they change will successful. The idea of not knowing the change can cause a rift between the employees and management. Lack of motivation is a barrier to organizational change. When an employee is unmotivated, they will not feel the urge to learn about the change and will resist (Spector
2010).
Factors Influencing the Proposed Change Identifying factors that could influence the proposed change is crucial. One needs to know these factors upfront to then have a plan in place to overcome them. One main factor that can influence change is communication. Employees should learn about the change from their direct managers. Learning from news of a major change from higher up can hurt the process. If employees hear this from upper management, and no one is there directly to dissipate any rumors or ill feelings, then the change doesn’t even have a chance to have a great start. Motivation is also important when trying to identify factors that could influence a proposed change. If your employees are motivated, there is more likely a chance the change will be successful. Having positive attitudes around the place of employment could help management change the other disgruntled employees attitudes towards the change.
Factors of Organizational Readiness If an employee is not ready for change, this would inhibit any further movement ahead in the change process. Some factors that would influence readiness for the organizational change would be not receiving enough education about the change or how the change is going to be made. Another factor that would influence the readiness is the employee’s willingness to change. Employees play a huge role in the organizational change, and if they are disrupting the change from happening, then the change might not be successful. Some resources are available to support the change. These resources can come from within the organization, or internally, or from the outside, which would be externally. The internal resources that can help the change would hopefully be the employees, managers, executives, and support staff. The external resources would be the computer support staff that is needed to be brought in to help assist the medical team with the transition. It also could be the new computers and computer system that is started up for the EMR change.
Theoretical Model The theoretical model that would be related to my change implementation would be that of Kurt Lewin’s three stage theory of change.
Spector states (2010), the three stages theory of change is composed of the first step, or unfreezing is about getting ready for a change. This would be preparing the staff to get ready for the EMR change. The next step is called moving, and it is the step where the change actually occurs. This can be the hardest stage for the staff that is changing. People can be unsure or even fearful during this time. This is the time when the management team steps in and brings in education, and reassurance to the staff that is changing. The final step is called refreezing. This happens after the changes have been made and been accepted. This is where they create a new ‘normal’ within the organization. This can take time. Through the process of this change management needs to reinforce the change to keep it going in the future as the new normal. Reassurance is also needed. This process would best explain the implementation change from paper charting to the use of
EMR.
Conclusion
With the right education, resources, and employee input change can be a great thing for a company. After working through the change process of identifying barriers and factors that could influence the change, then the change can finally happen and will be successful. The benefit of the conversion to electronic records far outweighs the challenges of the process. EMR is the way of the future and is here to make employees jobs easier, and decrease mistakes made across the board and, in the end patients will benefit from it.

References
Laing, K. (2002, March/April). The Benefits and Challenges of the Computerized Electronic Medical Record. Gastroenterology Nursing, 25(2), 41-45.
Rosenberg, S., & Mosca, J. (2011, Third Quarter). Breaking Down the Barriers to Organizational Change. International Journal of Management and Information Systems, 15(3), 139-146. ProQuest.
Spector, B. (2010). Implementing organizational change. Theory into practice. (2nd ed). Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice. Retrieved from University of Phoenix eBook Collection database.