Working in the anesthesia department can be a relatively arduous task when dilapidated tools are the only ones available, such tools are few, and a lot of innovation has to be done for the department to remain efficient and effective in a medical environment that is constantly changing with the changing trends and approaches to surgery. The state of affairs is not made any better when the personnel available for the anesthesiologist's role are few and demoralized, regardless of how much their remuneration is at the end of the day. In this article, the challenge of having few trained personnel in the anesthesiology department is addressed with the aim of proposing a change strategy that when implemented shall make a positive impact on the department, observable through an increase in the numbers of highly skilled personnel within the department. It describes the required change, summarizing how the change aligns with the mission, vision and values of the hospital, and then provides a change strategy that can be adopted, with due regard to the rationale for the proposed strategy. An outline of the steps to be taken is also provided, together with the way these steps align with the strategy. Finally, an explanation is given to the people who shall be involved in maintaining the change, and the relevant skills required of these people are also described.
Whereas the hospital continues to receive many patients in the intensive care unit, the number of personnel available to attend to them remains a far cry from the optimal. Shortage of personnel has been identified as one of the factors contributing towards the need to change in hospital settings. The anesthesiology department is also not left behind even though the department plays a critical role in preparing patients in this section for surgery. The current state of affairs does not allow the available personnel ample time for preparation between patients, and does not give enough time for stock taking. This makes the department rather inefficient, and calls for planned changes to be implemented. In this regard, Lewin’s Theory of Planned Change shall be employed, because of its versatility, ease of understanding and practical simplicity.
Taking a top-down approach, senior employees in the department shall be mobilized in an Unfreezing stage, so that they might see the need for the department to change. A proposal will be presented, detailing the strategy involving in-house training of students who are almost graduating from campus, and who shall be tasked with the responsibility to perform research into contemporary approaches to the anesthesiology and actualizing their findings through practical applications in the theatre. This approach aligns well with the hospital’s values because any person who shall be involved in the drive for change shall do so of their own accord, freely expressing their autonomy in the issue, and not being compelled by any other person. In addition, the incumbents shall have been chosen at random from campus, meaning that they shall have been given equal chances of being involved with the program, in line with the hospital’s values of upholding equity whether towards hospital staff or towards the patients. The training shall be at no cost to the incumbents, but they shall have the onus of training others from other campuses, effectively bridging the gap of knowledge between whatever is learned on campus and the requirements of the industry in which they shall have been employed. These roles shall be played under the auspices of the department head, who shall oversee the deployment of worthy trainers. This new system shall then be adopted as the new method of recruiting anesthesiologists in the hospital.
The proposed change is one way through which the department shall be capitalizing on the strengths of the leaders, who hold the knowledge within the industry, and know what other challenges the process of change might run into, apart from having the relevant skills to steer the departmentachangees process as well as maintaining the state of change once implemented. The skills required in this process shall include change management skills, leadership and motivational skills. The people involved should be able to motivate others into embracing the need for change, and once they have been thus inducted into the process, to be self motivated to follow through to the end. As leaders, they should have the foresight, able to see what the future is likely to present as a challenge to their drive towards change, and find ways of meeting those challenges. Therefore, such people should also be innovative, especially in situations where there shall be a scarcity of resources with which they can work. As a self motivated individuals, they shall be expected to have a positive outlook in all situations, and to maintain the attitude of succeeding in any and all situations in which they might find oneself. Additionally, the change drive should not be a one man affair, implying that the people recruited for the activity need to be team players who acknowledge the contributions made by other members of the team. Ultimately, however, anyone participating in the drive for change ought to have a patient-centric approach to the changes proposed, because the patients are the ones who keep them employed.
Reference List
Kowalski, K., Cherry, B., & Yoder-Wise, P. S. (2013). A Conversation with Peter Buerhaus. JONA , 127 - 129.
Mitchell, G. (2013). Selecting the Best Theory to Implement Planned Change. Nursing Management , 32 - 37.
Rodriguez, R. (Composer). (2012). Organizational Dynamics: Planned Change and Project Planning. [K. Skelton, Conductor]
Shirey, M. R. (2013). Lewin's Theory of Planned Change as a Strategic Resource. JONA , 69 - 72.
