Lewin came up with a three-stage model that is quite essential in the nursing practice. The model involves three stages: unfreezing, changing and refreezing. The main goal of the unfreezing stage is to create awareness on how the prevailing level of acceptability is impeding the effectiveness of service delivery in the organization. Examination of the previous processes, behaviors, organizational structures, and ways of thinking is significant in showing everyone how necessary change is. Lewin states that after people have been enlightened on the need for change, then the organization can transition into the new state of being. This is a stage that is characterized by uncertainty as people struggle to cope with the new reality. Refreezing is the final stage that involves reinforcing and stabilizing the new norm so that people do not revert to their previous ways of doing things. As such, Lewin’s theory is an important theory that can be applied to enhance hand hygiene for patient quality and safety in a healthcare organization.
Planned change, which involves a purposeful, calculated and inclusive effort in enhancing improvements with the aid of a change agent, is one practical way of integrating a change theory into a quality and safe initiative such as hand hygiene (Shirey, 2013). Before adopting a change theory, managers and other change agents must adopt appropriate models that will provide the necessary framework for implementing and evaluating change. Expertise is a requisite for implementing planned change because one must be conversant with the theory to be adopted. Integrating a change theory into a quality and safety initiative is significant in transforming plans into actions that enhance quality patient care. A change theory is also essential since there are various forces in health care such as treatment costs, advances in science and staff shortages that require frameworks grounded on appropriate models.
There are various ways through which I would apply Lewin’s Change Theory to integrate hand hygiene initiative to enhance patient quality and safety in my healthcare organization. Firstly, I would create time and talk to both staff members and patients on the danger of not maintaining hand hygiene. Srigley et al. (2015) notes that sometimes, nurses and other medical professionals do not wash their hands regularly despite the fact that their hands get into contact with many things while at work. In light of this, I would pin a few posters on the hospital walls to help facilitate the campaign for maintaining hand hygiene. With this information in mind of every staff and patient, I would start practicing constantly the new norm of hand washing with the patients as way of making it the new way of doing things around the healthcare organization. Additionally, I would continue challenging my colleagues and patients every day in order to ensure there is complete change in their thoughts, feelings and behaviors towards this initiative. Asking the organization’s management to incorporate hand hygiene as part of the standard operating procedures would help establish hand hygiene as a new habit.
Although change is vital, there are many complexities associated with transforming plans into actions even in the nursing literature. This makes it important for all key stakeholders to participate in implementing and managing change. In implementing the hand hygiene initiative, health workers, patients and the healthcare facility management are key stakeholders. For example, I would need absolute cooperation from staff members in setting a good example to patients. If staff members are opposed to the hand hygiene initiative, then it means the status quo will remain given the fact that health workers are important carriers of change in any healthcare setting. Likewise, patients must be fully involved in the adoption and implementation of this initiative since they are the primary victims of infections associated with poor hygiene. The management of the healthcare organization is equally important in implementing this initiative since there are financial aspects of the initiative. For instance, sinks may need to be fixed at strategic areas around the facility and also other things like detergents and soaps are needed to fully implement the initiative. In essence, Lewin’s Change Theory is quite significant in facilitating implementation, management and evaluation of an initiative whose aim is to change people’s thoughts, feelings and behaviors towards a better new habit.
References
Shirey, M. R. (2013). Lewin’s theory of planned change as a strategic resource. Journal of Nursing Administration, 43(2), 69-72.
Srigley, J. A., Corace, K., Hargadon, D. P., Yu, D., MacDonald, T., Fabrigar, L., & Garber, G. (2015). Applying psychological frameworks of behavior change to improve healthcare worker hand hygiene: a systematic review. Journal of Hospital Infection, 91(3), 202-210.
