09/02/2022
What is Change Management and why is it important?
Change management is the practice and process of supporting people through change, with the goal of ensuring that the change is successful in the long-term. Change management helps people to change their behaviors, attitudes, and/or work processes to achieve a desired business objective or outcome.
Change management as a discipline includes the processes, tools, and techniques used to manage the human elements of change which are applied at the individual, project, and organizational level before, during, and after the change occurs.
One of the key concerns in Health care management is management of change and health care professionals are obligated both to acquire and to maintain the expertise needed to undertake their professional tasks, and all are obligated to undertake only those tasks that are within their competence. Moreover, change occurs continuously around us. We may want to support it, be indifferent to it, and be passive or participate in it.
Effective change has been characterized as unfreezing old behaviors, introducing new ones, and re-freezing them. Change may be continuous, sporadic, occasional, or rare. Predictable change allows time for preparation, whereas unpredictable change is more difficult to respond to effectively. Since changes in healthcare occur so rapidly, they are less likely to be predictable.
Failure rates are associated to a number of different factors such as lack of vision and commitment from senior management, limited integration with other systems and processes in the organization, and ill-conceived implementation plans. If organizations are to experience a greater level of success in their development efforts, managers and executives need to have a better framework for thinking about change and an understanding of the key issues which accompany change management. Even if change is endorsed, employees want to understand why change is happening and how they will be affected. Layoffs or other organizational changes can lead to paranoia, confusion, anger and insecurities under the auspices of change.
What are the core elements of Change Management?
1. Governance and leadership
2. Monitoring and evaluation
3. Training and education
4. Workflow analysis and redesign
5. Communication
6. Stakeholder engagement
Each of these 6 core elements must be accounted for through a change management plan. Each plan helps to ensure that a key component of the change process is considered carefully and thoroughly, and that the change is successfully implemented and adopted with minimal organizational or individual resistance.
Promoting change is both demanding and fatiguing. Bringing about change requires the manager to challenge the precedent, and requires perseverance against the habits and norms of established behaviors. Bringing about change takes time and requires the commitment of time on the part of the manager. The manager must know the values that matter and focus on changing those as opposed to reacting to every invitation for change. She/he must be clear about what is important and develop responses and proactive actions accordingly.
Establishing a clear vision about the direction of the change process is another key element for assuring successful change. Measuring and monitoring outcomes of the change process is essential for recognizing whether or not the change process has fulfilled its purposes. Since change is continuing to happen in organizations and associated modifications are taking place, it is important for those who are in charge of the change process to record and focus on the emerging problems due to change. This will help avoid them in the future so that the new administration system will help to manage the change in the proper and best manner.
the rate of change in healthcare is accelerating, not slowing and the powerful forces that are transforming healthcare can generate vast economic potential for those who are able to employ effective survival techniques in the short term and at the same time plan for success in the long term. To accomplish this, an organization must harness the forces driving transformation and use them to its advantage. Finally, the change in health services entails incremental improvement on existing organizational capabilities, more empowerment to the changing agents and continuous support to the changing leaders.
