The increasing rate of innovation and disruption in healthcare is forcing providers to adjust workflows to meet the evolving needs of patients and make use of new technologies. However, without a process for change management, this progress could be flawed by inconsistency and miscommunication. In this blog post I share the importance of change management in healthcare.
What is Change Management? Change management is an organized, structured approach with methods that enable healthcare organizations to transform workflows seamlessly. Organizational change management requires the collective involvement of C-level executives and stakeholders to successfully implement changes within a care facility. Such change is required when individuals, processes, teams, and tools cannot keep pace with the ever-changing needs and expectations of the organization.
Why is change management Important to Healthcare? Change management helps achieve organizational goals with minimal resistance to change from staff. Healthcare executives should build focused and structured change management plans to effectively guide personnel to achieve desired outcomes. When done properly, an effective plan lays out a step-by-step process to identify a challenge, make changes, and execute successfully. It’s not as easy as it sounds.
Two types of change management: adaptive or transformational, depending on the needs of the organization. Adaptive changes are minor, incremental adjustments that improve clinical processes and workflows. This iterative change strategy does not impact the business model of the care facility.
Transformative, long-term change strategies greatly impact the culture and mission of an organization. Transformational change includes substantial, sudden alterations that impact how people, processes and tools operate in hospitals. Transformational change management may lead to a complete overhaul of a care facility’s critical functions and business structure.
Harvard Business School outlined the five critical steps in the change management process:
Define the change: Healthcare leaders must identify areas that require both minor and significant alterations. Leadership must introduce the proposed changes to staff and communicate why the alterations are necessary. Personable, transparent conversations allow administrators to gain buy-in from even the most reluctant individuals.
Develop the plan: After leaders determine what needs to be changed, they must build an effective, step-by-step plan that helps departments implement the changes organization-wide. Effective plans detail the organization’s objectives and success is measured through key performance indicators (KPIs). The plan distributes roles and responsibilities to others to ensure that change strategies are successfully implemented.
Implement the plan: Individuals must follow the plan for change to achieve all organizational objectives. The plan works as a compass to guide people and groups during the change management process. Healthcare managers must anticipate obstacles during the implementation process and generate solutions to ensure successful plan execution.
Stick to the plan: Resistance to change is inevitable when plans are implemented across care organizations. Effective, concrete plans combat barriers to change by making it difficult for personnel to revert to the old way of doing things. This phase requires change managers to motivate or even reward staff for welcoming adaptive and transformational changes. Successful change implementation can impact people, processes, and health IT solutions.
Analyze outcomes and results: Change leaders must assess the performance and success of their change management initiatives. A comprehensive analysis helps managers determine whether their project objectives have been achieved following plan implementation. These insights help leaders improve their change management processes.
Managing Organizational Change with Extract: Healthcare leaders must build concrete, effective change management plans to ensure that their organizations evolve along with the industry. Successful plan implementation helps leaders modernize their organizational workflows and prevents critical care functions from remaining stagnant over the years. Here at Extract, we leverage the latest advancements in machine learning (ML), optical character recognition (OCR), and artificial intelligence (AI) to identify the critical information within structured and unstructured documents. The software uses keywords, pattern recognition, context, and database lookups to find or triangulate high level data, such as patient name, MRN, and date of birth, and abstracts complex data coming from laboratory test results, patient referrals, second opinions, etc.
Unlike standard OCR solutions that simply convert files to raw text, our platform reads documents like a human would, quickly determining the document type which indicates the type of data that it will contain. The software extracts the critical information, then structures and delivers the data to the appropriate downstream system. The HealthyData Platform has many capabilities including search, duplicate document detection, manual and automated pagination, priority patient queueing, and automated document routing. The software can file discrete data at the patient, order, and encounter level.
The platform acts like an electronic interface (HL7, etc.) in that it translates and delivers unstructured data into discrete data that is properly mapped to the designated downstream system (EMR, EHR, LIS, DMS, research databases, etc.). The only difference is that you won’t need a new interface for each document source. The platform works with faxed, scanned, and electronic documents.
If you’re interested in seeing how our workflow automation platform can deliver you discrete results and save your clinicians time, please reach out and we’d be happy to have an introductory call or a quick demo of the software.
Sources:
https://www.techtarget.com/searchcio/definition/change-management
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: TAYLOR GENTER
Taylor is the Marketing Manager at Extract with experience in data analytics, graphic design, and both digital and social media marketing. She earned her Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Marketing at the University of Wisconsin- Whitewater. Taylor enjoys analyzing people’s behaviors and attitudes to find out what motivates them, and then curating better ways to communicate with them.