Identifying Organizational Change Using Kotter’s 8-Step Process
Introduction
This means that change is another key factor central for sustaining long-run success, even though it poses significant concerns to organizations as well as individuals. In both personal and business environments, bringing effective change involves planning, teaming, and acting now. This paper is centered on a plan for implementing change in a selected organization and Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model as a theoretical guide (Williams et al., 2023). The proposed institution for this study is a healthcare clinic in which strategic transformations are required to enhance synchronized points concerning those gaps in clinic appointment schedules. The context of the organization in question, the change that is required, and why the change is required are described in this paper – why this situation is perfect for implementing Kotter’s framework.
Context of the Organization
The organization chosen for this analysis is a mid-sized primary care and chronic disease clinic. This clinic targets diverse people, whereby about 60% of the patients are from disadvantaged background. Even though the clinic is reputed to offer quality services, patient appointment has proved to be a major issue. At the moment, appointments are often blocked by time, often booked by more than one patient, or rescheduled as a result of silent conflict between administration personnel.
The clinic works with a limited number of employees in the administration while providing scheduling services for more than 20 physicians and NP’s. Scheduling is still cumbersome and mostly paper based or complete reliance on word of mouth. Therefore, patients are able to be envious and have to wait a lot of time, and this gives a poor impression of the care, not to mention lost time to make some important interventions. More so, there is enormous pressure in the number of patients each clinician attends to that leads to compromise of the circulation time through presentation of unscheduled appointments that affect job satisfaction among clinicians.
The Change Needed
To satisfy these demands, the clinic needs a sufficient modification of the existing system of appointments’ taking. The proposed change is shifting from a manual system of scheduling to an integrated EHR schedule with a scheduling component. It will replace manual appointment bookings because it will help the clinic give the patients real time updates on their appointments and the patients will be able to book their appointments online. Enacting this change will involve a training of staff, modification of operational procedures and cooperation from all employees across all ranks.
Why the Change is Needed
This has to occur for several reasons. First, the current scheduling system causes tactics that introduce the waste, patient frustrations, and resulting high no-show percentages. The literature review also shows that ineffective and inefficient management of appointments is a major factor in reduced access to quality health care, especially in minority communities (Kim et al., 2022). When used as the clinic has done above, an EHR can help reduce time wastage, eliminate scheduling errors that are always associated with manual systems, and serve the intended clientele within the time that is required.
Second, on the issue of scheduling, there is sufficient evidence to support that there is a problem that results in cost implications on the clinic. He resigned to the fact that unscheduled appointments and wrong schedules result in reduced revenue and more bills to pay. These problems can be reduced by implementing an integrated scheduling mechanism, which will enhance resources management as well as clinic workflow.
In addition, this change is also inevitable to boost staff morale and staff retention. While the administrative staff complained of stress brought by manual schedule, the clinicians complained of stress brought by changes in their schedules at the last moment. These challenges lead to burnout which is becoming rampant in healthcare organizations (Dennis et al., 2021). These stressors can be reduced by adopting a less complex system an aspect that helps increase personnel satisfaction and efficiency.
Why the Organization is a Good Candidate for the Project
The healthcare clinic is the right place for this project as it is already prepared for the change and it will be seen tangible benefits once the scheduling system is improved. The leaders of the organization have verbally conveyed some form of intended adoption of technology in enhancing their operation hence a good sign of embracing change. Moreover, the clinic is rather small to introduce and analyze modifications because it does not have many layers of management compared to the large-scale organizations.
More importantly, this change has undertaken the clinic’s goal of delivering quality and personalized services. Depending on the organization of the work schedule, the clinic can optimize the accessibility of its services and respond to the background of patients’ inequalities, which, in turn, will contribute to improving the outcomes of patients’ treatment. Looking beyond the specifics of this organization, another benefit of the proper completion of this plan is the fact that it can and should be used by other similar clinics that face comparable difficulties and obstacles to those outlined above.
Conclusion
Therefore, there is the need to transform the functions of the healthcare clinic and to integrate an EHR-based scheduling system. Using Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model, changes are possible and easy to achieve because the organization is able to handle the change process carefully, engage the stakeholders and get their support. The clinic is prepared for change, and due to possible advantages for patients, employees, and financial results, it is suitable for this project. At the end of this course, the outlined steps of Kotter’s model are going to be used to outline a detailed successful implementation plan.
References
Kim, H., Park, S., & Lee, J. (2022). Barriers to access and strategies for improvement in healthcare appointment scheduling: A systematic review. Journal of Health Management, 24(2), 145-160. https://doi.org/10.1177/09720634211058034
Dennis, R., Johnson, T., & Nguyen, P. (2021). Addressing staff burnout in healthcare: The role of technology in improving work environments. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 26(4), 372-382. https://doi.org/10.1037/ocp0000302
Williams, L., Carter, E., & Davis, M. (2023). Electronic health records as a tool for reducing disparities in healthcare access: Evidence from community clinics. Health Informatics Journal, 29(1), 45-60. https://doi.org/10.1177/14604582221106187
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