The central issue of the Vila Health activity is inadequate team management; the attempt to save money on EHR systems and IT specialists resulted in dysfunctional technology, which affected nurses’ quality of care and wasted the organization’s money. The key reason for the multidisciplinary team’s ineffective collaboration is a lack of cohesive leadership and violating the professional knowledge areas of another specialization, namely IT. Thus, the part of the organization in which the plan will be carried out is corporate; the desired outcome is to guarantee improved collaboration and effective management through knowledge exchange between corporate and IT departments.
Objective
Implement the plan–do–study–act (PDSA) cycle for Vila Health’s organizational change focusing on corporate and IT departments with the goal of enhancing leadership and knowledge exchange. This goal is consistent with the broader organization’s goals of improved nurse quality of care and lower organizational expenditures. Methods to determine success are evaluating feedback from team members on the functionality of the EHR system, team collaboration, and improved patient results.
Questions and Predictions
What are the intended outcomes of the PDSA cycle?
The four-stage cycle emphasizes continuous product or process improvement. In the instance of Vila Health, a change targeted at improvement is identified as leadership. Any employee participating in or affected by the change must have the chance to contribute to the change process through knowledge sharing (Crowfoot & Prasad, 2017). Moreover, the PSDA’s intended outcomes should be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound.
What leadership strategy will solve the current problem of the team’s insufficient collaboration?
Person-Centered Situational Leadership Framework, or PCSLF, would ultimately increase the team’s ability to achieve the objectives.
How to enhance knowledge exchange between corporate and IT departments?
The knowledge exchange between corporate and IT departments can be enabled by using an evidence-based interdisciplinary collaboration strategy, such as empowerment based on grounded theory.
How to improve the functionality of the current EHR system?
The system should be updated, and a Senior EHR Software specialist should be hired. Additionally, the corporate department should enable feedback and ideas sharing on EHR functionality.
Change Theories and Leadership Strategies
The suggested change theory is based on Lewin’s organizational change model. Knowledge sharing is vital to ensuring improved cooperation and efficient management, but Vila Health’s case indicates the contrary, where knowledge was kept in each profession (Hussain et al., 2018). The incorporation of an impediment rather than something that is meant to promote efficiency, productivity, and quality of care has a detrimental impact on the entire company. Harrison et al. (2021) claim that all change activities may be couched using Lewin’s Model. For instance, unfreezing operations highlighted the creation of new rules and processes, with the entire project focusing primarily on introducing new technology and shifting stage.
Person-Centered Situational Leadership Framework, or PCSLF, is the leadership strategy being proposed. Sigmon (2020) states that interprofessional collaboration is frequently defined in healthcare as an active and dynamic partnership between experts from diverse backgrounds with various professional cultures and potentially displaying different sectors who work together to provide services to healthcare users. Collaborative working entails maintaining seamless working relationships in the context of activities that are highly interdependent and interrelated (Sigmon, 2020). Josh from corporate was not engaging with the IT department properly, and he did the opposite of motivating them to the point where IT employees did the bare minimum.
Furthermore, the whole interdisciplinary team lacks cooperation, appreciation, and engagement. The strategy will be comprised of PCSLF and its essential features. Josh could have communicated with the department on a deeper level rather than just pushing them to follow his exact directions, which were not based on his EHR integration knowledge. Josh discouraged the team from working together, particularly with the IT specialists. The strategy emphasizes the need to foster excitement for action among team members. Listening from the heart to the other person and uniting through cooperation, respect, and trust are critical milestones in PCSLF (Lynch et al., 2017). Josh’s inadequate leadership style arose as a result of his ignorance of limits and available resources.
Team Collaboration Strategy
The selected best-practice interdisciplinary cooperation strategy is empowerment based on the grounded theory. The scenario depicts an interprofessional team that is highly disconnected from one another. Power is not applied simply by the one at the top of the collaboration empowerment structure but rather by all team members.
- Josh from corporate will manage the team by enabling knowledge exchange between different departments.
- Chad Cook, the IT manager, will closely cooperate with Josh from corporate to inform on the EHR system, IT professionals’ progress, and insights.
- Chad Cook will hire a Senior EHR software specialist during the next month.
- Stephen, the administrator, will share the concerns regarding adherence to low costs with the corporate and IT departments.
- Each team member will be trained two times during the year on using the EHR system and constantly sharing feedback and suggestions for possible improvements with the corporate and IT departments.
By creating more robust connectivity among each professional group, empowerment will help to solve problems and promote collaboration. Employees should encourage cooperation by actively communicating, fostering cross-departmental connections, gathering data, and addressing gaps (Craig et al., 2020). Furthermore, proactive training, coaching the team, and instructing on EHR systems, as well as risk management, troubleshooting discharge, and avoiding liability, are critical to success.
Required Organizational Resources
A significant task of nurse managers is to obtain resources for optimal patient care. Kolakowski (2016) suggests that nursing department labor budgets have historically included the greatest share of hospital personnel and expenses; hence, careful management is obliged to ensure a balance between care delivery and cost-effective planning. In advance of the yearly budget planning process, the organization’s financial systems and PCSs offer retrospective historical information. Variable costs are staff workers who alter in reaction to variations in productivity, census, and patient acuities, such as nurses and IT professionals inside the company (Kolakowski, 2016). Regardless of acuity or census variations, fixed expenses stay constant.
Fixed FTE budget needs are based on historical data, organizational goals, and administrative processes. The staffing needs for the plan proposal include hiring an additional IT specialist to ensure that the EHR system operates efficiently. 1.0 FTE (full-time employee) works 40 hours each week, 2,080 hours a year, working in 8-hour shifts (Kolakowski, 2016). The typical salary for a Senior EHR Software Specialist is $98,260 (Comparably, n.d.). An updated EHR is needed; the estimated purchase and installation cost of an EHR is $33,000 per FTE per year (Green, 2022). The average spending on hardware, software, accessories, and network services is $5,900 (Green, 2022). Additionally, IT and other outside support costs will cost approx. $3,000. Thus, the overall financial budget request for a year for the plan proposed is $98,260 +$33,000*10 (suppose, 10 FTE) + $5,900+$3,000 = $437,160. If the plan is not undertaken and successful, the patient’s service will worsen because of the dysfunctional EHR system and the absence of the senior IT specialist; thus, the company will lose clients.
References
Comparably. (n.d.). Senior EHR software specialist salary. Web.
Craig, S. L., Eaton, A. D., Belitzky, M., Kates, L. E., Dimitropoulos, G., & Tobin, J. (2020). Empowering the team: a social work model of interprofessional collaboration in hospitals. Journal of Interprofessional Education & Practice, 19. Web.
Crowfoot, D., & Prasad, V. (2017). Using the plan–do–study–act (PDSA) cycle to make change in general practice. InnovAiT, 10(7), 425–430. Web.
Green, J. (2022). How much EHR costs and how to set your budget? Web.
Harrison, R., Fischer, S., Walpola, R. L., Chauhan, A., Babalola, T., Mears, S., & Le-Dao, H. (2021). Where do models for change management, improvement and implementation meet? A systematic review of the applications of change management models in healthcare. Journal of Healthcare Leadership, 13, 85. Web.
Hussain, S. T., Lei, S., Akram, T., Haider, M. J., Hussain, S. H., & Ali, M. (2018). Kurt Lewin’s change model: A critical review of the role of leadership and employee involvement in organizational change. Journal of Innovation & Knowledge, 3(3), 123–127. Web.
Kolakowski, D. (2016). Constructing a nursing budget using a patient classification system. Nursing Management (Springhouse), 4 (2), 14-16. Web.
Lynch, B. M., McCance, T., McCormack, B., & Brown, D. (2017). The development of the Person-centered situational leadership framework: Revealing the being of person-centeredness in nursing homes. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 27(1-2), 427–440. Web.
Sigmon, L. B. (2020). Interprofessional collaboration made easy. American Nurse Today, 15(11), 36–38. Web.