HCS 587
Organizational Change Plan Part 1
Organizational change is difficult, although necessary to support growth and excellence in the market place. The concept of change can have negative connotations among employees, especially if change implementations have not been successful in the past. This paper is going to describe the need for change, barriers to change, factors that might influence change, readiness for change, the theoretical change model that relates to the change, and resources that support change implementation.
The Need for Change
The health care system in western Oregon has identified the need to implement Language of Caring to support improvements in patient experience of care scores, or Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) scores. “The Language of Caring Skill-Builder System aims to expand and strengthen staff communication skills so that the dedicated people on your care and service teams more effectively and more frequently make their compassion and caring felt by the people they serve” (The Center for Health Affairs, n.d., para. 1). The program consists of nine modules: heart-head-heart communication, the power of presence, acknowledging feelings, showing caring nonverbally, explaining positive intent, the blameless apology, the gift of positive regards, the caring broken record, and the skills combined (The Center for Health Affairs, n.d.). The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) made a decision in 2013 to publically report patient experience of care scores (Oregon Health Authority, n.d.). Value based purchasing paved the way for mandated reporting through the introduction of the physician compare web site, and patient centered medical homes, as a response to the Accountable Care Act mandates. Pay for performance is the reimbursement structure supported by the accountable care organizations in which the state of Oregon supports robustly. The