Introduction
Patient care has always been a driving force in terms of health care development and continuous quality improvement. According to the researchers, the conventional, evidence-based practice model has now evolved into the medicine-based personalized care approach that focuses on the individual medical profiling of the patient (Horwitz et al., 2018). The primary aim of the present organization change proposal is to develop a functional strategy of shifting towards a more patient-centered organizational approach within a small physician practice setting.
Organizational Assessment and Development Planning
Regional Health is a small physician practice based in Williston, North Dakota. One of the major peculiarities of a small private medical facility is the significantly small number of employees and customers, which inevitably presents a pathway for more personalized care. Regional Health is a multispecialty facility that presents customers with a wide range of services such as primary physician care and subspecialty services in cardiology. The target demographics of Regional Health comprise patients aged 50-75, indicating the need for a more person-oriented approach that is not based on entirely digitalized services.
When speaking of new products and services, it should be primarily mentioned that the current context of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak has introduced a variety of corrections to practice, especially as far as older patients are concerned. Generally, Regional Health specializes in general physician check-ups, development of treatment plans, treatment follow-up, at-home care options, and subspecialty cardiac diagnostics. However, since the pandemic outbreak, the area of the center’s expertise has begun to comprise COVID-19 testing and diagnostics. The virus has accelerated the shift towards telehealth, and Regional Health currently obtains an option for virtual patient visits in order to eliminate the risk of infection.
However, despite the seemingly beneficial introduced modifications, the target clientele of the medical facility mostly struggles with the ability to use gadgets in order to connect to their physicians. Moreover, the overall setting of the Regional Health creates a challenging environment for the staff, as the limited number of employees within the practice prompts professionals to deal with patient care and administrative work simultaneously. Such ambiguity in terms of job descriptions facilitates the creation of a communication gap between practitioners and patients (Fiorio et al., 2018). For this reason, the key areas of change within the facility will be the reconsideration of the job description of the employees and the reassessment of communication channels with the target customers in order to meet their expectations.
Plan for Strategic Change
A distinct advantage of a small physician practice in terms of organizational change is the ability to consider the point of view of every employee, providing them with the opportunity to contribute to the managerial and organizational modifications. Thus, for the current proposal, Lewin’s change management model will be employed. In terms of this model, the process of organizational change undergoes the three primary phases: unfreezing, change, and refreezing (Saleem et al., 2019). Thus, during the unfreezing stage, the following issues will be addressed:
- Recognizing the demand for organizational change through the analysis of the survey results;
- Defining the key areas for change, including communication improvement and job description reconsideration;
- Organizing an open discussion involving both management and staff in order to brainstorm the improvement ideas and the parties’ vision of change;
The change stage, in its turn, will comprise the following considerations:
- Planning the change with the help of outlining the primary steps and key performance indicators (KPIs) per each action;
- Change implementation;
- Staff training and support during the transition.
Finally, the refreezing stage will include the evaluation of the modified model and its final corrections. Once the change is proven to be successful, the refreezing change accounts for the full-scale model integration in the workplace.
Action Plan and Deliverables
The action plan accounting for the change introduction will include the following steps:
- Evaluation of the current job description and responsibilities of the setting’s staff, creating a potential scenario of reducing the physicians’ time spent on mundane administrative work. The issue of administrative work will be addressed by creating a separate staff position. The expected deliverable is the physician’s increased capacity of establishing a communication bond with patients.
- Conducting a patient survey on the matter of the most convenient way to communicate with them during the check-ups and visits. Based on the survey’s responses, the management team will create a framework of communication channels available. The expected deliverable is more efficient communication with patients, a patient-centered approach to care, higher patient satisfaction rate.
- Evaluating the physicians’ and customers’ satisfaction with the newly employed model of communication and duty allocation. In case of a positive tendency in the outcome, the model will be permanently integrated into the setting.
Conclusion
The ongoing tendency of shifting towards a patient-centered approach in health care encourages many private facilities to embrace the change in order to remain relevant in the market and compete with larger medical facilities. In the case of Regional Health, it has been established that accounting for patient demographics is a key step in terms of securing positive outcomes. Moreover, in order to bridge the communication gap, it is of crucial importance to ensure physicians’ ability to have enough emotional resources to engage in the communication and support for patients.
References
Fiorio, C. V., Gorli, M., & Verzillo, S. (2018). Evaluating organizational change in health care: the patient-centered hospital model. BMC Health Services Research, 18(1), 1-15.
Horwitz, R. I., Charlson, M. E., & Singer, B. H. (2018). Medicine based evidence and personalized care of patients. European Journal of Clinical Investigation, 48(7), e12945.
Saleem, S., Sehar, S., Afzal, M., Jamil, A., & Gilani, S. A. (2019). Accreditation: Application of Kurt Lewin’s theory on private health care organizational change. Saudi Journal of Nursing and Health Care, 2(12), 412-415.