Nurse Administrator’s Role in Risk and Quality Management
Nurse administrators have a duty of eliminating risks in healthcare systems. Patients in healthcare systems anticipate receiving healthcare of high quality (Rinkoo et al., 2013). Healthcare administrators anticipate that organizations in the healthcare system can deliver such care in the most efficient way. Avoiding risks in the healthcare implies that an administrative nurse has a responsibility of offering the highest quality care. Such care leads to less bed days, lower number of recovery days, and few visits in healthcare delivery centers. Administrative nurses guarantee the deployment of evidence-based nursing practices (Reneé, 2016).
Through their primary purchasers such as MCOs, consumers of the services anticipate nursing administrators to demonstrate quality, price competitiveness of services, and effectiveness. Nursing administrators accomplish this role in an environment of other modifiers. Such modifiers include the need for tailoring health care products and services to meet individual needs of people. MCOs and private insurers purchase the services and products on their behalf. Such organizations need to establish business relationships with healthcare organizations whose administrative nurses guarantee delivery of low risk and quality care. Hence, nursing administrators have to ensure their organizations minimize the risk of financial losses and suboptimal performance of employees.
Healthcare purchasers anticipate receiving report cards for various services that are sought from healthcare providers. The cards need to have information on service quality, risks , and the cost of every product line. Teams that carry out patient care through the leadership of nursing administrators have the duty of setting the grade reflected in the report card. Hence, nursing administrator have a role in risk management. They ensure accountability and inclusion of various requisite risk management strategies that guarantee quality healthcare products and services (Thorpe, 2015). Nursing administrators are champions of change who lead through the change as agents.
Nurse Administrator’s Role in Developing and Implementing a Change Management Project
Healthcare organizations that seek to gain a competitive advantage need to focus on mechanisms for changing the manner in which they conduct their business. In developing change, nursing administrators play the role of ensuring that the change developed enables a healthcare organization to become more profitable. Such a health facility should deliver efficient and high-quality healthcare products and services. Managing change embraces making use of tools and fundamental structures to control and monitor the change efforts in an organization (Mitchell, 2013). Change may involve the alteration of organization’s missions and technologies followed by aligning the changes with the new healthcare products and services. Changes need to be in line with the need to foster creativity and innovation in healthcare products and service delivery
While developing change, nursing administrators should evaluate the change. The goal here is to ensure that healthcare products developed, as part of change, are of higher utility in terms of quality. Such products and services have a higher probability of yielding positive organization’s reputation. Such reputation has an impact on the number of clientele and satisfaction levels of the consumers of healthcare products and services. Change management refers to the approaches that are deployed to shift and/or transition people, teams, and organizations to the desired future state (Brock, 2012). It objects to enable organizations’ stakeholders to embrace change.
During change development, nursing administrators have the role of identifying potential threats. Such threats may arise after accepting the change or maintaining the status quo. Nursing administrators have an obligation to derive strategies for ensuring successful change. Implementation through people, who are also influenced by it. The strategies include preparing people to embrace it. This goal may be realized by creating awareness of change, including how it will foster the health of the organization by serving better the needs of the employees. Such awareness is important during change implementation, especially where some employees perceive it as a threat to the security of their jobs.
Relationship between of Theory and Change Management
Change may involve proactive and reactive approaches. Irrespective of the approach taken, a theoretical model for the analysis of change coupled with its implementation is paramount in any organization. Theory and change management have a relationship. Change management has many models. However, the important and mostly deployed models or theories include:
- Lewin’s model of change management
- The he 7-S model developed by McKinsey
- The he 8-Step theory developed by Kottler (Mitchell, 2013)
Lewin’s theory of change evidences the relationship between change management and theory. Lewin suggested that change should be managed through three main approaches, namely unfreezing, transition, and refreezing. Unfreezing is done by motivating people to accept change. In the transition phase, an organization needs to use the appropriate and adequate leadership coupled with reassurance to ensure that the change becomes a success. Refreezing is done after successful change implementation to enhance organizational stability. This phase ensures that people operate without destructive conflicts under the new approaches and guidelines (Mitchell, 2013).
The Interrelation between Theory, Risk, Quality Management, and Evidence-based Practice in terms of Change Management
In developing change, nursing administrators determine the required strategic direction of healthcare organizations. They take part in brainstorming on the necessary strategies for achieving the identified organizational direction. The brainstormed idea requires evaluation and analysis. Nursing administrators take part in this process. They link the developed strategies to evidence-based practice and theory (Reneé, 2016). Indeed, the developed change is implemented consistently with a particular theoretical model.
Change management incorporates perspectives of minimizing the risk of failure of the identified change to meet expected outcomes. Where such risks are identified, nursing administrators resort to finding the appropriate industry benchmarks. The find out how the best-in-class organizations developed their change to achieve their current success in implementing change without compromising the quality of healthcare products and services. With such benchmarks, nursing administrators take part in re-developing the change while incorporating perspectives of avoiding risk of failure from the experiences of other organizations.
Analysis of the Components or Tools that are pertinent for Effective Change Management
Effective change management requires the deployment of various tools. Such tools include:
- Accountability
- Definition of the need for change
- Communicating the change
- Making the change stick
Effective change management requires the identification of the responsible person(s), including who will to be held into account during the change establishment process.
Establishing the need for change management project is the second tool for effective change management. Successful change project implementation correlates with having people with sufficient information about the change (Thorpe, 2015). People need to be aware of the role the change will play in their organization, especially its benefits and ability to meet their interest in an organization. Creating awareness of the established need for change involves communication. This tool for effective change management ensures that people have the correct information about the change on a regular basis. Change becomes ineffective when people are detached from it, instead of being part of it.
Risk and Quality Considerations in my Change Management Project
Health care that is delivered to people needs to be of high quality. It should also be cost effective. Any project for change management within health care system should feature these aspects. Therefore, it is necessary to consider the possible risks and quality in my change management project. My project balances the need for quality care and risks with the need to deliver cost-effective care.
Any effort to reduce the cost of running a health care facility may be an incentive to employ under-qualified staff. A health care facility can opt to charge less for services and products delivered. However, this situation may influence the quality of the services and the products. To overcome this challenge, one may consider hiring highly qualified staff, although they will require a higher remuneration. Such staff may increase the quality of services delivered. In my change management project, effort is made to ensure that the change does not result in higher risk from both patients’ perspective and the health care organization’s perspective.
Reference List
Brock, W. (2012). Synthesizing a systems perspective and organizational change: Principles of a whole- systems metrics model. Organization Development Journal, 30(3), 17-28.
Mitchell, G. (2013). Selecting the best theory to implement planned change. Nursing Management, 20(1), 32-37
Reneé, R. (2016). Quality improvement and pain management: an evidence–based approach. Pediatric Nursing, 42(1), 39-49.
Rinkoo, A., Singh, G., Kaur. R., Chandra, V., Masih, L., & Chandra, H. (2013). Augmenting nursing care quality and implementing change management in India: an amalgamated approach. Journal of Nursing Management, 21(8), 1053-1060.
Thorpe, R. (2015). Planning a change in mental health project. Nursing Standard, 30(1), 38-44.