Managing Change in Healthcare

 

1. Introduction

The article is discussing managing change in healthcare and how change management is related to handling its complexity. The article focuses on the strategies and tactics relevant to managing change as effective change means to unfreeze the old behaviors and applying new ones. Change is connected with competitive advantage so it is important to face the challenges that may work against it. It is important to set a clear vision about the needed change in order to reach successful change. Leaders should help all stakeholders apply change effectively and leaders have to share a vision for change, face the challenges to it and measure the change results to state how far it is successful. The current paper is relating the article to theories of change management, it also critically evaluates the point of view of the author with its strengths and weaknesses and discussing its positive and negative points and it also prevents the current paper's writer's point of view based on self-evaluation and relevant theories.

2. Content and Analysis

Kurt Lewin's change model is used to state how change can be applied in the business organization, change is applied through individuals in the organization and it requires to pass to change, the model has three phases which are the unfreezing phase that means to prepare for the change, the change phase that includes involving individuals into change and communicating it and the freeze phase where change should be applied and asserted. (Ali et al, 2017) The ADKAR model for change management depends on five main change concepts which are the Awareness concept and it refers to making people aware of change, the Desire concept that refers to raising people's desire towards applying change, Knowledge concept that focuses on learning techniques that are used to apply change, Action concept that includes involving the activities of change within action and applying them and Reinforcement that includes adding more actions to reinforce change. (Mary and Dijesh, 2017). Other theories of change is Kotter's eight step model of change as it includes eight steps of applying change which are creating sense of urgency, building a guiding coalition, forming strategic visions and initiatives, enlisting volunteer army, enabling actions by removing barriers, generating short term wins, sustaining acceleration and instituting change. (Appelbaum et al, 2011)

The author's opinion has strengths such as the author's opinion that change is a complex process that needs deep handling such as evaluation, planning and implementing different actions as change according to Penbek et al, (2012) is a very important action that requires many steps and phases to go through. The author also sees that promoting change is a difficult process that needs the manager to face different challenges and fight them by many strategies, this was assured by Nickols, (2016) who confirmed that there are many barriers to change management and those barriers are challenges that need planning and tactics to fight them. There are also weaknesses in the author's point of view such as when he mentioned that the ability to change is the only sustainable competitive advantage today as according to Johnson et al, (2016) there are many competitive advantage that can be sustainable such as innovation and creativity and others in addition to change of course so the author has to mention or refer to other factors. Another weakness is that the author only referred to Lewin's model of change management by referring to change management as unfreezing old behaviors without reference to Lewin's model, the author also had to mention other models to discuss change management.

Regarding my own point of view regarding change, change can be a process of moving from the application of certain culture with all its elements such as values, vision, goals, plans and needs to another completely different culture that involves completely different elements such as values, vision, goals, plans and needs and this requires deep and clear awareness for what, why and how changes are going to be applied and then the main lines should be set for all stakeholders who should express their opinions about the change in order to have full awareness of its benefits for them and for the organization in order to be convinced with changes and then the next step should be applying change that should be aligned with training and adding more information about change and its elements, the last stage should be focusing on sustainability in order not to waste the change culture that was gained and communicated.

3. Conclusion

In conclusion, it is important to refer to the need to apply change in the business organization in order to develop it and reach competitiveness. Change management is very important and there are many models for applying it such as Kotter's model, Lewin's model and ADKAR's. The current article has strengths and weaknesses related to the author's opinion in change management. Change can be applied when the organization realizes how the models are understood and applied according to the organization's needs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

1. Alabri, R. (2007). 'Managing Change in Healthcare.' https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3294155/
2. Ali, M. Hussain, S. Haider, M. Akram, T. Lei, S. (2017). ' Kurt Lewin’s change model: A critical review of the role of leadership and employee involvement in organizational change.' https://ac.els-cdn.com/S2444569X16300087/1-s2.0-S2444569X16300087-main.pdf?_tid=fe043b24-4e25-40f5-a010-79128c30bfc8&acdnat=1528599719_576eebe4aa3a37175a54423f0e30346b
3. Appelbaum, S. Habashy, S. Malo, J. Shafiq, H. (2011). ' Back to the future: revisiting Kotter's 1996 change model.' https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/full/10.1108/02621711211253231
4. Johnson, M. Murphy, T. Monahan, K. (2016). 'Humanizing Change.' https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/insights/us/articles/developing-more-effective-change-management-strategies/DR19_HumanizingStrategy.pdf
5. Mary, R. Dijish, J. (2017). ' Analysis of change models and evolving business strategies for proposed change in dynamic environment.' International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) e-ISSN: 2395 -0056 https://www.irjet.net/archives/V4/i3/IRJET-V4I3317.pdf
6. Nickols, F. (2016). 'Four Strategies to Managing Change.' http://www.nickols.us/four_strategies.pdf
7. Penbek, S. Zaptcioglu, D. Gunerergin, M. (2011). ' The need of effective strategic management during a planned change: An example of bologna change process from a Turkish university.' https://ac.els-cdn.com/S1877042811015990/1-s2.0-S1877042811015990-main.pdf?_tid=dba51d96-595b-45c5-9e8f-256723b42ba8&acdnat=1528531934_26d9dc720fc1e071527267d0717b5238