Healthcare managers' roles and responsibilities in implementing organizational change

Role of Managers in Healthcare

Change is the norm within healthcare organizations, the ability to change as well as being adapted is very vital for success. Change plus innovation might not be successful if the organization is not capable of implementing them successfully. Coming out with gain out of a change in a process is not just providing new technologies, reallocating resources or reorganizing units but generally effective organizational change needs that work groups as well as employees shift the manner in which they carry out their responsibilities. It is true that in any case work group and employees do not change their behavior then it always not easy to implement new changes.

Managers may influence the effectiveness as well as the speed of the implementation of the new processes. Even though senior leaders perform an important function in identifying and implementing new strategies, middle level managers in an organization also, via their leadership of groups in an organization, undermine or improve the ability of an organization in the implementation of a change, Armenakis, A., & Harris, S. (1993). Like in any case managers are not supporting a change due to the fact that it does not support their interest; this may sabotage or delay the implementation of the new process. In a single firm, individual manager's choice is capable of influencing the speed in which practices are being adopted by units in supporting a new change. Such indicates that understanding the far to which intangible factors in a group may back up the implementation is going to be influenced by the leader of the unit.

Sometimes a member of a unit may be in support of the strategic change yet have a low tolerance for mistake and do not work together making the unit to flounder in their attempt of implementation process, or a unit member might have the capabilities of implementing the new processes though might disagree with the adopted changes within the organization. This can be overcome when the manager provide effectiveness as well as effective support for norms and strategy of the unit support change. When the manager gives the resources as well as direction, then the members of the unit will have the capabilities of implementing and refining the new processes. In any case the manager do not show support for the new change or when a group is not capable or is being motivated so that they efficiently perform change, then the achievement from the new change is going to be limited. Improvement in terms of performance is possibly to at its maximum if the group back up the strategic change and the manger reinforce it.

For example when an organization wants to enact changes by using the advantage of its size to offer the similar quality of care as is being done by traditional fee-for-service providers at a decrease price. Which may be due to the fact that the potential patients as well as patience perceived the organization to be bureaucratic and impersonal plus do not express a maximum degree of satisfaction generally while interacting with the healthcare organization? The aim of the new strategy is to improve satisfaction of the patient.

For the manger to implement the new strategies, he is needed to put in place new systems and structures across the whole organization, such as higher staffing levels, new call centers and scheduling systems. Again shifting degree of satisfaction for the patients with the organization needed transforming the kind of interaction that involves the physicians and their patients. Such circumstance indicates a definite role of intangible factors like leadership plus norms as well as tangible resources in terms of facilitating change effort implementation. Changes in terms of technology and facilities might be a vital factor in implementing new processes for enhancing satisfaction, Anderson, N., & West, M. (1998).

The manner in which physicians interacts with their patients is likely to affect the final achievement of the new change. It is hard to monitor the behavior of the physicians and also for the manager to put in place protocols to govern such interaction tends to be a problem. Therefore changes within such interaction are possible to be the outcome of shift in priorities and perception of the physicians instead of new formal control system implementation or putting in place a new automated scheduling system. Not surprisingly, the positive effects of strategic change are greatest when groups support the new direction.

During the process of strategic changes, managers are suppose to be focusing on establishing for them support, which can be direct, relentless communication. More so they are required to search for ways of involving the staff in finding out on how to implement the strategy. For example building support always entails assisting the staff members to understand the importance of change as well as the dangers of going on with the status quo. When the general norms that support change interact with other factors they tend to facilitate implementation, Birenbaum, A., & Sagarin, E. (1976). In any case groups are in a position to accept some mistakes, then the manager should have a sense of urgency in terms of their jobs, supporting each other and work effectively as a team, hence innovations as well as implementing of some new ideas are improved.

Building a culture not only comes from what a leader says but also from the actions that the leader undertakes, and in any case a manager happens to encounter a mistakes at the event of opportunity for learning and correlation and convey a sense of energy towards the goals to be reached, or reward performance of the team and even attempt new things himself, then the way the group will perceive change will be of different way as compared to when a leader ignores or punishes mistakes, avoid experimentation and being indifferent.

Resistance is easily minimized if: the change is likely to be in terms of the budget, the entire parties who are involved are kept well informed, the proposal is sensibly in accordance with the established norms, beliefs and procedures in the organization or grouping of the project has been cautiously thought out, possible problems recognized and managed, and their alternatives are well thought-out, open communication and readily used in terms of questions, suggestions, as well feedback It is essential to know that it is not bad to get resistance. If applied in the wrong way then it may not be applied to the advantage by the managers. However resistance is capable of: indicating a lack of effective communication; providing an early warning to reassess prior to implementing further; indicating a great deal over the nature of the system for example, whatever is being protected and why; indicating early on that the change is in fact impracticable or the ineffective of the strategy, Bazzoli, G., Dynan, L., Burns, L., & Yap, C. (2004).