In order to successfully implement a change within an organization, the change agent must assess the organization’s culture and readiness for change.
ASSIGNMENT INSTRUCTIONS
In 750-1,000 words, analyze the culture and level of readiness of the organization for which your evidence-based practice project is proposed. You will use the assessment of the organization’s culture and readiness in the Topic 8 assignment, during which you will synthesize the various aspects of your project into a final paper detailing your evidence-based practice project proposal.
Include the following in your paper:
- Describe the organization’s culture and explain to what degree the culture supports change. Consider organizational and leadership structure, mission and values, interprofessional collaboration/team engagement, communication, perception of the organization by employees, etc.
- Select an organizational readiness tool and assess the level or readiness for change within your organization. Identify the readiness tool and summarize the survey results. Discuss the degree to which the culture will support and sustain an evidence-based practice change. Consider strengths and weaknesses, potential barriers, stakeholder support, timing of the proposal, and resources. Provide rationale.
- Discuss what health care process and systems you would recommend for improving quality, safety, and cost-effectiveness for the organization.
- Propose strategies to better facilitate the readiness of the organization.
- Identify the stakeholders and team members for the project. Include what their duties will be in the evidence-based practice project proposal.
- Explain what information and communication technologies are needed for the implementation and how they will be integrated in the setting by the internal stakeholders. Explain how these will help improve nursing practice and care delivery for individuals and populations for your intervention.
Refer to the “Evidence-Based Practice Project Proposal – Assignment Overview” document for an overview of the evidence-based practice project proposal assignments.
You are required to cite a minimum four peer-reviewed sources to complete this assignment. Sources must be published within the last 5 years and appropriate for the assignment criteria and nursing content.
Complete the “APA Writing Checklist” to ensure that your paper adheres to APA style and formatting criteria and general guidelines for academic writing. Include the completed checklist as an appendix at the end of your paper.
Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center.
This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.
You are required to submit this assignment to LopesWrite. A link to the LopesWrite technical support articles is located in Class Resources if you need assistance.
Benchmark Information
This benchmark assignment assesses the following programmatic competencies:
MBA-MSN; MSN-Nursing Education; MSN Acute Care Nurse Practitioner-Adult-Gerontology; MSN Family Nurse Practitioner; MSN-Health Informatics; MSN-Health Care Quality and Patient Safety; MSN-Leadership in Health Care Systems; MSN-Public Health Nursing
3.1: Assess health care processes and systems to recommend measures for improving quality, safety, and cost-effectiveness across an organization.
3.3: Integrate appropriate information and communication technologies to improve nursing practice and care delivery for individuals and populations.
SAMPLE STUDENT ANSWER
Evidence-Based Practice Project Proposal: Organizational Culture and Readiness
Change is a complex process that can cause conflicts when not handled properly. As change agents, we are required to assess the organization’s readiness for change before taking the initiative to implement change. In this regard, there are various tools that could be used to facilitate the assessment of an organization’s readiness to change. The purpose of this paper will be to give a detailed description and assessment of an organization’s readiness to implement a community-based quality improvement initiative.
Organization Culture
The current organizational culture is based on a value system, with cultural centeredness, customer focus, and stewardship being some of the core values. The organization currently embraces a clan culture where teamwork is highly valued when conducting different organizational activities, more so given that most of the activities are community-based.
The current leadership style being embraced within the facility is a transformational leadership style, which is a leadership style characterized by empowerment of followers to be active participants in the change. Transformational leaders are usually open to new changes within the organization and have the ability to inspire member participation in the process (Doody & Doody, 2012).
As is currently, there is a high level of collaboration among employees. According to Willgerodt et al. (2020), embracing interprofessional collaborative practice is an essential facet to implementing change successfully within the organization. Given that the organization has also been conducting other quality improvement interventions, the employees are quite receptive to prospects of implementing change initiatives. However, further analysis on stakeholders is crucial to ascertain organizational readiness for change.
Organization Readiness Tool
The selected organizational readiness tool is known as Partnership Assessment Tool for Health (PATH). This is a useful tool in analyzing the nature of partnership between the organization and other stakeholders in implementing a change initiative. The tool has four components that it measures namely, internal and external relationships, workflow and service delivery, funding and finance, and data outcomes (CHCS, n.d). In summary, among the four measures, the assessment of the organization showed positive feedback in three of them and returned funding and finance as an aspect that needs further development.
The current organization culture embrace collaboration within and outside the organization to achieve common goals. Therefore, if this culture is sustained then the organization will maintain a high level of readiness in terms of maintaining effective partnerships, especially with external stakeholders, in turn sustaining the evidence-based practice change. which will be conducted in a community setting.
Some of the strengths that the organization has as per the analysis include strong internal and external relationships, evidenced by a shared understanding of goals. The organization is also strong in workflow and service delivery, and communication of data outcomes. Some of the potential barriers include a weaker finance structure that is dependent on a few financing sources.
Health Care Process and Systems
Several health care processes can be recommended for improving quality and safety, and cost-effectiveness within the organization. One of the processes that I would recommend is improving interprofessional communication. Doing so will enhance trust and understanding within the care team leading to the provision of patient-centered care (Foronda et al., 2016). Use of the PDCA (plan-do-check-act) is one of the approaches that can be applied to encourage a system of continuous improvement within the facility.
The methodology takes a systematic approach to quality improvement, with the previous step being used to collect data for the subsequent step leading to a cycle of continuous improvement (Liu et al., 2022). One of the health care systems that I would recommend is a patient management system to help track patients post-discharge, ensuring a continuum in care.
Strategies to Facilitate Organizational Readiness
Having strategies to facilitate organization readiness is crucial in achieving successful change. Given the results from the readiness assessment, there are various strategies that can enhance an organization’s readiness to change. One of the strategies is to involve stakeholders before participating in any change initiative. Stakeholders can either be internal or external, with their involvement being critical in the success of a change initiative. Without proper engagement, the chances of facing resistance are likely to increase leading to failure of the change initiative (Butt et al., 2016).
Another strategy is to have a systematic approach to change. This is where evidence-based change models like the PDCA cycle comes in (Liu et al., 2022). Using these models allows a smooth transition to change instead of an abrupt chaotic approach that will likely destabilize organizational processes.
Stakeholders and Team Members
Identification of stakeholders and project team members is an important aspect that allows efficient implementation of the change, including in crucial processes such as communication. My proposed change was to enhance health outcomes of community-dwelling obese African American adult patients by introducing a physical exercise program. As such, the stakeholders who will be involved in the project include, the patients and their families, who will be the main participants in the intervention, while their family members will play an encouraging role to ensure that the patients adhere to the prescribed intervention. Another stakeholder is the facility’s leadership who will be responsible for allocating resources that will be used in the evidence-based practice project proposal.
For the project team, the following will be involved; a team of nurses to help in the collection of data and communicating with the patients and other stakeholders when need be. The team will also have a dietician to advise the participants on the type of diet to take during the intervention for better outcomes. The team will also have a fitness expert to advise on the nature of exercise prescribed to the participants. Lastly, the team will have a nurse informaticist to help in data analysis since most of the data will be collected and relayed electronically to the facility’s portal.
Information and Communication Technologies Needed
One of the technologies that will be required in the evidence-based project is remote monitoring systems, where the participants will have a device that will monitor the amount of exercise engaged. Similarly, the participants will use their phones to relay the collected information back to the facility for analysis. The nurse informaticists will use the available data analysis systems within the facility to produce results that can be used for decision-making. The use of remote patient monitoring technology has transformed how nurses interact and deliver care.
Such technologies have enhanced communication, speed, and efficiency in care provision, allowing timely interventions to be prescribed to patients before they encounter adverse outcomes (Malasinghe et al., 2019). The remote technology will help to monitor adherence to the prescribed intervention which would have otherwise been done manually, which might have been impossible. Due to the mentioned advantage, the number of patients that can enroll in the intervention can be easily increased
Conclusion
The organization presents positive results in terms of readiness to change based on the PATH assessment tool. Ultimately having the right systems in place is still crucial to ensuring the success of the initiative. Leveraging on internal and external stakeholders can significantly improve the success of the initiative.
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References
Butt, A., Naaranoja, M., & Savolainen, J. (2016). Project change stakeholder communication. International Journal of Project Management, 34(8), 1579-1595. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2016.08.010
Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS). (n.d.). Partnership Assessment Tool for Health. Center for Health Care Strategies | Advancing innovations in health care delivery for low-income Americans. https://www.chcs.org/media/Partnership-Assessment-Tool-for-Health_-FINAL.pdf
Doody, O., & Doody, C. M. (2012). Transformational leadership in nursing practice. British Journal of Nursing, 21(20), 1212-1218. https://doi.org/10.12968/bjon.2012.21.20.1212
Foronda, C., MacWilliams, B., & McArthur, E. (2016). Interprofessional communication in healthcare: An integrative review. Nurse Education in Practice, 19, 36-40. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2016.04.005
Liu, C., Liu, Y., Tian, Y., Zhang, K., Hao, G., Shen, L., & Du, Q. (2022). Application of the PDCA cycle for standardized nursing management in sepsis bundles. BMC Anesthesiology, 22(1), 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12871-022-01570-3
Malasinghe, L. P., Ramzan, N., & Dahal, K. (2019). Remote patient monitoring: a comprehensive study. Journal of Ambient Intelligence and Humanized Computing, 10(1), 57-76. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12652-017-0598-x
Willgerodt, M. A., Abu-Rish Blakeney, E., Summerside, N., Vogel, M. T., Liner, D. A., & Zierler, B. (2020). Impact of leadership development workshops in facilitating team-based practice transformation. Journal of interprofessional care, 34(1), 76–86. https://doi.org/10.1080/13561820.2019.1604496
Jermaine Byrant
Nicole Johnson
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