Change Management Strategy

Change Management Strategy

Introduction

In today's environment the task of healthcare manager is becoming extremely difficult and challenging. He has the responsibility to make decision on how to gain competitive advantage in the healthcare environment and simultaneously managing an organization that experiences continuous change by developing effective strategies. The reason for these changes is due to changes in the external environment as a result of rapid technological advancement for instance Electronic Health Record (EHR). Thus healthcare managers need to plan strategies that will prove to be effective and managing change in the organization these managers can use different approaches and model that have been stated by a number of philosophers. They need to define a vision and goal and communicate the goal to overall organization and its employees (Walburg, 2006).

Changes in the environment require the healthcare manager in the organization to modify their strategies in accordance with the shifts in the environment. However it is important for managers to know that often the change that has been implemented might fail since the workforce might not adopt the right behavior that is necessary for implementing the change strategy successfully (Caldwell, et.al, 2008). It is important for them to understand the need for taking appropriate actions that will improve patient's satisfaction level and communicate it to members if physician's team. Whether the change is in the structure of organization or in the process of delivering effective care to the patients it is important for managers to change and adapt to be able to achieve success (Muller, Jooste & Bezuidenhout, 2006). The reason for the failure of these strategies is not that the strategy was inappropriate but the management was not able to implement it successfully. Bringing change in the healthcare organization is not about reallocating the available resources, providing the staff with new and improved technology or restructuring the organization but it is about changing the way the work is done and behavior of employees. It is necessary to change the behavior of employees for implementing effective change or else it would become impossible to bring change. The responsibility of implementing change lies with team and work groups in healthcare organization. It important for the organizational strategy to be flexible for implementing change rigid organizational structure and inappropriate workforce behavior will make it difficult for organizations to implement change (Sare & Ogilvie, 2010).

Managing change in healthcare organization becomes even more challenging for organizations as it is a continuous process and hence it is essential to monitor change strategy on continuous basis. To implement change effectively it is significant for the managers to realize that change is to unfreeze old behavior of employees, introduce new behavior that is in accordance with change strategy and refreeze this behavior. Participation of employees in bringing change is considered important for organizations. Change may be predictable or unpredictable, however if the change is predictable healthcare organizations have time to prepare for the change whereas unpredictable change does not allow organizations much time to be prepared for ...