Change Champions for a Professional Development Plan for Staff
As the change champions, the chosen staff members of LMC will be given a number of responsibilities to execute. The change champions will be given the responsibilities of assisting project managers in disseminating the trainings. Additionally attending seminars to advance their knowledge, attend project meetings and participate by offering opinions and ideas, and finally offer support to staff members who work at the discharge clinics.
Change champions will be of utmost benefit to LMC in regards to this project in many apparent ways. Considering that champions commit themselves and earnestly work to accomplish their objectives. LMC is predisposed to reducing the rates of readmitting patients with heart failure. Owing the fact that the majority of the staff members will gain profound skills and knowledge necessary in implementing the plan meant to reduce the rate of readmission (Warrick, 2009). Additionally, change champions will not only help in implementing the proposed change but also help executing activities deemed positive and of benefit to the hospital.
Evaluation Plan
Subsequent to developing a strategic plan, it is of utmost significance to evaluate the strategic plan to ascertain that the project achieved the objectives that were stated prior to the implementation of this project. Considering that the main objective of this project plan was to improve the quality of patients through professional development of staff. The implementation plan that will be adopted in evaluating the effectiveness of the project herein should provide us with credible evaluation that can be used to make significant decisions. The evaluation will enable us determine whether to terminate of continue with the plan.
In the case of this project, monitoring and feedback system will be employed in evaluating the effectiveness of the strategic plan that was implemented earlier. This system has three basic elements. The first element being the process measure will help us establish what was done to accomplish the objectives of the plan (Tucker et al. 2011). The second element of this method is the outcome measure. The outcome measure is a very critical and essential tool in establishing the results retrieved from the project subsequent to implementation. Lastly, the third element of this evaluation method is the observational system (Anthony, 2010). The above will be used in our case to keep track of the current initiatives done to achieve the objectives.
In addition to using the monitoring and feedback method, Lewin’s model will be used in concert. The use of refreezing method incorporated in the Levin’s model is of utmost importance. Once the project has been fully implemented, the subsequent step will be to reinstate the equilibrium at LMNC. Refreezing will establish a new state of equilibrium in the hospital. In essence, refreezing will integrate the organizational culture, structure and rewards with the main objective being to reinstate the equilibrium of the hospital (Botelho et al. 2013). The timeline of evaluations is illustrated hereunder.
The procedure below will be done within a period of 2 weeks. The first step which is process measure will take four days. This will be followed by the outcome measure that will take two days, then the observational system that will take three days then the remaining five days will entail refreezing.
Executive Summary
As stated at the onset, the problem that prompted the development of this project was the increased readmission of patients with heart failures to LMC. Research findings accentuate that a total of $17 billion in United States alone is spent on hospitalizing patients with heart failures (Schiller et al. 2014). With a close consideration to the above, the main objective and goal of this project was to evaluate a quality improvement plan, and strategies that LMC can use to reduce readmissions of patients with heart failure.
The urgency of this problem was prompted by the legal issues established by the government to reduce instances of readmissions (Joyn & Jha, 2013). Additionally, this matter is requires significant attention. Owing the fact that heart failure has been established to be the main reason as to why patients of above 65 years of age get hospitalized (Setoguchi & Stevenson, 2014).
References
Ginsberg, A., & Abrahamson, E. (2011). Champions of Change and Strategic Shifts: The
Role of Internal and External Change Advocates*. Journal of Management Studies, 28(2), 173-190.
Investment, A. H. P. (2012). Developing Organization Change Champions. Handbook for
Strategic HR: Best Practices in Organization Development from the OD Network, 483.
Warrick, D. D. (2009). Developing organization change champions. OD Practitioner, 41(1),
14-19.
Joynt, K.E., & Jha, A. K. (2013). Who has higher readmission rates for heart failure, and
why? Implications for efforts to improve care using financial incentives. Care Cardiovasc Qual Outcomes, 15(4), 53-59.
Schiller, M. R., Miller-Kovach, K., & Miller, M. A. (2014). Total quality management for
Hospital nutrition services. Gaithersburg, Md: Aspen Publishers.
Setoguchi, S., & Stevenson, L. W. (2014). Hospitalization in patients with heart failure: Who
And why. Journal of American Coll Cardial, 54(3), 1703-1705.
Anthony, D. D. (2010). U.S. Patent No. 7,666,118. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office.
Botelho, M., Kowalski, R., & Bartlett, S. (2013). Kurt Lewin's model of change revisited in a
Brazilian Higher Education context.
Tucker, S., Randal, C., Halstead, J., Leach, C., & Lucock, M. (2011). The triumphs and
tribulations of creating a Monitoring and Feedback System in a standard UK NHS secondary care setting.