Redesigning Clinical Processes For Improving Healthcare Delivery: Factors To Consider

Benefits of Redesigning Clinical Processes

Discuss about the Global Elements of Business Process Management.

The authors argue that redesigning clinical processes have allowed significant improvement in the healthcare delivery in processes such as emergency care and elective surgery programs in the New South Wales and Finders Medical Center in South Australia, which can allow benefits for both the patients as well as the staff. The principles that are involved in the clinical process have been used in other industries, and have shown significant advantages due to which now it is also used in the healthcare contexts. The redesigning of the healthcare has also helped to identify those aspects that are critical to the strategies for implementation to be successful. The elements identified by the authors include: leadership skills shown by the senior executives, problem solving skills in a team, clinical leadership skills, highlighting on the journey of the patient in the clinical setup, access to clinical data, setting up a high and ambitious goals and targets for performance, strong and efficient mangement of staff performance and process that can help to maintain the improvement process in the clinical setup (McGrath et al, 2008, p 17-22).

The authors have clearly identified and outlined each of the aspects that should be considered while implementing a transformational change in a healthcare setup. The aspects includes a) efficient leadership skills. b) Engaging clinical leadership c) Involving multidisciplinary team for the design of the solution. d) Effective implementation. e) Paying focus on the clinical journey of the patient. f) Making the patients and their care givers a part of the healthcare team. g) Access to data is also vital as it helps to inform vital clinical decisions. h) Stretching the abilities and skills of the workforce. i) Ensuring readiness of the organization towards change. k) Efficient selection of projects is also vital. l) Identifying if the change is local or system wide. m) Ensuring flexibility in system and continuous improvement. (McGrath et al, 2008, p55).

The authors however did not support any of the identified aspects with relevant claims or analysis. It was however mentioned that the aspects have been incorporated from other change implementation processes used in other countries, but fails to specify which aspects have been identified from which country, and therefore is ambiguous.

In the given study, the authors identified several important factors which are needed to be considered while implementing change in a healthcare setting, and which can determine the success of the implementation project. It helps to design and inform strategies for effective implementation of change, and hence can be very useful knowledge in the implementation and sustenance of transformational change in a healthcare setup (McGrath et al, 2008, p 20). However there are certain other considerations that also can be considered in the process which have not been discussed by the authors.

Factors to Consider when Implementing Transformational Change

According to Lewis et al. (2016, p13), change can be either implemented within a context that considers organizations as machines, the workers as the cogs and management as the control system, or within the context of the organization as a living biological system, and the functions of the workers as vital processes that keeps the organism alive. This forms the conversational approach towards change, which begins with the preparation for change, followed by the process being defined, discovered, dreamt and designed followed by the objectives being outlined.

Other considerations which have also not been discussed by the authors include:

1. a) The key processes or tasks or technical services (such as implementing cloud based or ERP softwares, upgrading existing applications, and process improvement methodologies) that are important for the improvement of the service delivery and the overall business should be considered (Pugh, 2016, p2).
2. b) The returns in costs expected from the implementation of the change management strategies should be expected to be like in case of any other businesses (Hayes, 2018, p55).
3. c) Having tangible outcomes for the change process helps to align the results with the identified goals regarding the timing, costs, and implementation methods which are communicated through the different levels within the management to ensure effective change management (Rosemann and Jan vom Brocke, 2015, p19).
4. d) In the project investment, the change management should be considered as accelerator or an insurer (Kerzner, 2018, p7).

Also, strategies for change management can includes various other essential elements such as: identification of the target audience, the communication strategies and tools, the topics for communication regarding the change, the challenges and risks associated with the change, planning of the project, structures and components of the communication activities, examples of the communication activities and identification of the roles and responsibilities in the implementation of change (Bradway et al., 2015, p5; Shirley, 2016, pq 19-20). The planning an execution can in turn include aspects like outlining the key performance indicators (KPI) such as the baseline KPI, implementing the KPI, Training and deployment of trained personnel, ensuring post production support, and measuring KPI improvements (Parmenter, 2015, 33; Kazmi et al., 2018, p 2).

From the main article, it can be concluded that redesigning clinical processes involves several important considerations and has a significant potential to improve the delivery of healthcare across various care settings, and can benefit both the patients as well as the staff, by ensuring the overall wellbeing of the patients and foster professional growth of the staff. The aspects identified by the authors can help in the effective implementation of the change processes, since each of the aspect is integrally related to the performance of the healthcare delivery system. Also, addressing these considerations, it is also possible to ensure the implementation of continuous improvement strategies as well as allow focus on the clinical journey of the patient (McGrath et al., 2008, p 24). However, aspects such as the key processes involved in the change management, cost returns as a result of the change process, identification of tangible results to assess the progress and success of the change strategies, and the role of change management to accelerate or insure the change implementation also should be considered in the process. Additionally, it is important to identify the target audiences as well as the communication strategies that need to be utilized to share the various aspects of the change strategies with the different executive and managerial levels.

Other Considerations for Change Management in Healthcare

In the professional practice in healthcare in Australia, these factors imply the following functions and abilities to be exhibited by healthcare professionals and healthcare leadership. A) They should exhibit the ability to lead by examples, and show others the way towards the change and how they can be beneficial. B) They should be able to listen to and understand the views and feedbacks of the healthcare staff and use it to inform the redesign process. C) Help and support the development and continuation of multidisciplinary healthcare team, and identifying ways to communicate information and reporting within the team more efficiently. D) Involving the clients anf patients needs, expectations and feedbacks in the redesign process. E) Exhibiting responsibility towards the performance of the team as well as towards the well being of both the patients and staff. F) Setting up care frameworks or protocols based on Patient Journeys. G) Identify methods for the evaluation of the staff performance and how to further develop their skills and abilities. H) Setting up standardized care delivery models. I) monitoring whether the change strategies have been implemented and are being followed at every level. J) Setting up performance targets for the staff, and also revising them periodically, increasing the targets towards better performance and productivity to ensure the growth of both the individual as well as the organization. K) Helping the organization to be ready for the change. By such actions, management and leadership in a healthcare setup can ensure the effective implementation of the change process and thus the success of the change management (Bradd et al. 2017).

References:

Bradd, P., Travaglia, J. and Hayen, A., 2017. leadership in allied health: a review of the literature. Asia Pacific Journal of Health Management, 12(1), p.17.

Bradway, Meghan, Eirik Årsand, and Astrid Grøttland. “Mobile Health: empowering patients and driving change.” Trends in Endocrinology & Metabolism 26, no. 3 (2015): 114-117.

Hayes, John. The theory and practice of change management. 2018.

Kazmi, Syeda Asiya Zenab, and Marja Naaranoja. “Healthcare Transformation Through Change Management Process for Innovation.” In International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics, pp. 380-389. Springer, Cham, 2018.

Kerzner, Harold. Project management best practices: Achieving global excellence. John Wiley & Sons, 2018.

Lewis, Sarah, Jonathan Passmore, and Stefan Cantore. Appreciative inquiry for change management: Using AI to facilitate organizational development. Kogan Page Publishers, 2016.

McGrath, Katherine M., Denise M. Bennett, David I. Ben-Tovim, Steven C. Boyages, Nigel J. Lyons, and Tony J. O’Connell. “Implementing and sustaining transformational change in health care: lessons learnt about clinical process redesign.” Medical Journal of Australia 188, no. 6 (2008): S32.

Parmenter, David. Key performance indicators: developing, implementing, and using winning KPIs. John Wiley & Sons, 2015.

Pugh, Lyndon. Change management in information services. Routledge, 2016.

Rosemann, Michael, and Jan vom Brocke. “The six core elements of business process management.” In Handbook on business process management 1, pp. 105-122. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2015.

Shirley, David. Project management for healthcare. CRC Press, 2016.