Change Management Helps the Advancements in Health Information Technology

Introduction

To begin with, health information technology involves the use of the information technology in the management of health and medical records, something that is aimed at improving medical care for patients. Furthermore, change management is critical at every stage of the implementation of HIT, and there are three supporting evidence for it. First, health information technology is the adoption of the information technology and modern systems such as electronic health records in the management of all healthcare functions. For example, electronic health records system is the ordered collection of all the data about population or a separate patient health conditions, which can be easily shared with various healthcare settings such as hospitals. Second, change management plays a critical role in the adoption of health information technology. For instance, the institution of change management helps various organizations to rearrange their methods of governing including planning and development of new methods. Finally, change management may be a make or break when it comes to implementation of health information technology. Therefore, it is necessary to apply different mechanisms of clinical and business transformation of all the processes needed to stimulate this reorganization.

Managing Change in Healthcare Information Technology Projects

Nevertheless, change management is not easy in healthcare industry and especially when it comes to health information technology. Moreover, the process of transformation is not easy for human nature, because human beings create different habits comfortable for them and are not willing to give the up. The information technology is only a developing science, which creates additional difficulties on the way to its application in healthcare. For instance, the overall statistics shows that approximately 80% of people will accept the changes, while the remaining 20% of workers will have problems with it (Aziz, 2007). Moreover, 10% from these 20% are only skeptics, who approve the reformations only at the end of the process, while the other 10% are represented by diehard resisters (Aziz, 2007). These people are not open-minded, and, as a result, do not have an opportunity to change their minds in case of some personal or political problems, because they have an entrenched style of thinking and do not see alternative ways. Furthermore, the existence of resistance creates a negative working environment and declines others’ morale in the organization. If people are afraid of the coming changes, they will obviously create an opposition, which will resist alterations, which, in its turn, will sabotage or slow the processes. As a result, any transformations cannot be easily adopted by people according to their nature, especially application of IT in healthcare.

More by token, all the changes require incorporation of both vision and strategic plans of any healthcare facility. First, the change management is the process, which is used in order to help an organization to achieve its future condition through the thorough vision and planning (Lorenzi & Riley, 2007). On the one hand, vision is the projected model of the facility, which should be achieved at the end of all of the steps of its implementation. Furthermore, when traditional styles of planning define only the main phases of the journey, the tries of change management make these stages easier (Lorenzi & Riley, 2007). In is turn, the development of all changes is made through the vision of them, and only then people have an opportunity to act to implement these changes. On the other hand, planning performs the creation and development of the steps needed to successfully reach the final model performed through the vision. Moreover, all the agents, who are responsible for changes, require various plans, which should be realistic and oriented on the future, and should also use a systemic approach (Lorenzi & Riley, 2007). As a result, the system of change management consists of wide range of planning methods, which are needed to acquire the final vision of the project, which is the desired model of the organization.

Additionally, in order to ensure success in HIT, project managers have to understand reasons behind the need for change. It must be said that the implementation of HIT through change management is one of the greatest steps on the way of prevention of medical errors through technology. For example, the surveys show that approximately 98,000 people die every year in the USA because of medical errors, which could be easily avoided (DePhillips, 2007). In their turn, different healthcare organizations conducted a series of investigations, which highlighted that the application of HIT would help to reduce the number of medical errors. It was stated that most of the medical errors are caused by insufficient information about patients, which consists of medical history, tests, and list of medication of each of the patients (DePhillips, 2007). As a result, the creation of full database of the data represented above regarding all the patient will help medical workers to make better decisions and to avoid mistakes. The application of HIT will assist in storing of the information about all the persons absorbing data from a wide range of various sources (DePhillips, 2007). Finally, there is an urgent need of HIT in the medicine, because it will help to get rid of the current gap in the knowledge of different features of all the citizens of the country. Therefore, the range of possible treatments for each patient will be narrowed and the probability of medical errors will be reduced.

In its turn, the importance of application of HIT calls for leadership skills and deep understanding of implementing changes in order to advance health information technology plans. First, the leader has to be a role model of changing through the embracing different alterations showing that the new initiative is the major priority of the leader (Yelton & Donahue, 2010). Second, appropriate resources and attention should be committed, because the desired results can be achieved only through complete devotion of time and concentration (Yelton & Donahue, 2010) It is also necessary to communicate with employees during the whole process, which will help to connect the thoughts of workers with desires of the manager (Yelton & Donahue, 2010). Additionally, it is important to rely on the already checked processes of changing such as Change Acceleration Process (CAP), which will provide a template and tools needed to transform the organization of consistent changes. As a result, the leader should be consistent, communicable, should rely on proven frameworks, and be a key figure of changing through own example.

Change Management and Health Information Technology

Moreover, change management helps in advancing alteration, adoption of health information technology and implementation of electronic health records. The change management is responsible for the launch of HIT and electronic health records. The main task of change management is to reduce the level of stress experienced by the employees of the organization adopting new methods of health records (Mekanontchai, 2009). The discussed process helps to explain workers the quality of implementation of the new technologies and how these systems can be used in the future in order to contribute to positive outcomes for the whole organization and its separate divisions (Mekanontchai, 2009). Furthermore, the successful change management aids all the employees to analyze the whole volume of information regarding adoption of HIT and gives them an opportunity to understand its importance (Mekanontchai, 2009). As a result, the discussed process plays a significant role in launching of HIT for creation of electronic health records.

Moreover, change initiatives and change management are critical at every stage of the implementation of health information technology. There are six main steps. First, it is needed to create and to develop the feeling of urgency of changes and immediate actions amongst all the workers in the organization (Aziz, 2007). Then, it is necessary to choose the leaders, who will guide the process, and the agents, who will be responsible for its execution (Aziz, 2007). Moreover, it is important to develop the strategy and the vision of the final realization of the project (Aziz, 2007). Then, all the employees have to communicate with each other in order to understand initiatives and changes, and to act together according to the established plan of changings (Aziz, 2007). Furthermore, it is needed to accelerate the process, keep calm and focused not getting distracted on politics, and to celebrate, foster, and create the new methods transforming it into the new tradition (Aziz, 2007). Finally, change management plays an important role in each step of the implementation of HIT in the healthcare industry.

Moreover, decision support systems of health information technology depend on the change management processes, because this system defines the main factors, which are considered while making decisions. First, change management establishes the objectives of implementation, assesses the current conditions, identifies project protocols and leaders, and defines the functions of the new system (Mooney & Boyle, 2011). Second, this type of management compares support and products, estimates benefits and their costs, installs, negotiates, and purchases HIT (Mooney & Boyle, 2011). At the end of the process, the needed supporting team is trained, every factor is measured again, and the final report about all the factors considered before is presented to the decision making body (Mooney & Boyle, 2011). Although only this decision system defines the following steps that should be made within the organization adopting HIT, change management is responsible for the preparation of the necessary documents. As a result, health information technology’s decision making system is closely connected with the processes of change management.

Furthermore, organizational change management defines what is expected from adopting and implementing the modern technological advancement in the healthcare industry. More by token, the discussed process is responsible for definition of the current status of the system and the projected functionality of HIT (Mooney & Boyle, 2011). For example, through the definition of the major functions of EHR, the management helps to compare them with the basic requirements of security and privacy of the entire industry (Mooney & Boyle, 2011). Besides, change management determines monitoring, training, and design phases expected after the launching of this new system (Mooney & Boyle, 2011). As a result, it is necessary to determine the expected results of the implementation of HIT, which is executed by the help of change managing.

Positive Impacts of Change Management Advancements in Health Information Technology

Furthermore, there are a lot of various examples of positive impacts of change management on implementation of HIT. Besides, change management is responsible for creating awareness and prepares the healthcare providers to adopting and applying health information technology. One of the most important tasks of the change management is to inform all the healthcare providers about the intentions of implementation of these new technologies. For example, if an organization will not be prepared for launching of health IT, there will be a plethora of workers, who will lose their jobs immediately after application clerks responsible for patients’ registration (Cresswell, Bates, & Sheikh, 2013). However, if these healthcare facilities are informed about changes beforehand, they will be able to train all their workers according to the new standards of their duties (Cresswell et al., 2013). This proves the importance of providing the staff with trainings aimed at simulating the new working conditions (Cresswell et al., 2013). Moreover, the results of recent surveys show that successful implementation of HIT in the history includes common efforts, readiness for changes, permanent training of team, willingness to excel, and communication out of practice (Jaen, 2011). As a result, change management has to provide all the healthcare providers with the needed data regarding the application of HIT.

Moreover, change management supports the implementation of HIT in decision making and is in line with vision and strategic plans. One of the most effective ways of explanation of the vision of the project is the development of an engaging story, which makes people responsible for making decisions pay their attention to this project (Campbell, 2008). Furthermore, this will obviously help to keep the sense and accuracy, and will aid in defining various methods of vision (Campbell, 2008). Moreover, change management will assist in decreasing the number of transcriptional and medical errors, which, in its turn, will improve the process of treatment of patients and the documentation of this treatment (Campbell, 2008). For example, some short video presentations will help to illustrate all the positive impacts of the implementation of technologies. Finally, strategic plans and vision of the project created and developed with the use of change management will obviously assist in making the correct decision regarding the implementation of HIT.

More by token, change management promotes understanding in adoption of HIT for employees as well as for team leaders. Nevertheless, the main factor, which makes the implementation of HIT more comprehensible, is the communicative skills of all the representatives of the whole team (Teixeira, 2009). This aspect will help the team leaders to explain the importance and the major results of the application of the new technology for all the workers. These types of management permanently assess the results of the teamwork, determine the general aim of the project, proclaim all the criteria to be met and describe them for the team (Teixeira, 2009). As a result, change management is one of the most significant tools used in healthcare organizations for promotion of HIT for their workers.

Finally, change management helps to stay focused on the main objective of the adoption and use of HIT. Furthermore, the discussed process assists in avoiding wasting time and to clearly determine the final goal, which is going to be achieved after implementing, for example, EHR. On the one hand, for instance, some of the methods propose only meeting the minimal demands regarding the adoption of HIT according to American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) (Mooney & Boyle, 2011). On the other hand, there are organizations, which want to completely automate all of their working systems in order to have access to other laboratories and clinical histories’ sources (Mooney & Boyle, 2011). Moreover, the objectives determined by change management also consist of costs, training, vendors, and the time needed for the changes (Mooney & Boyle, 2011). As a result, change management is one of the most influential factors, which help to focus on a particular projected task, and aid to determine the final result.

Conclusion

In conclusion, change management helps the implementation of health information technology. More by token, the discussed process aids the leaders of the healthcare facilities to promote new ideas amongst employees of their organizations. For instance, this system is very important for the application of various electronic healthcare systems such as EHR. Moreover, change management is critical in the implementation of HIT and helps in fostering the new culture of use of HIT. This type of activity aids all the workers of an organization to effectively collaborate with each other and assists in each step of the process of launching of this new technology. There are no doubts that change management is an integral part of the organizational processes of the implementation of health information technology, which contribute to the development of all its aspects. For example, it gives the organization a unique opportunity to determine the main objectives, goals, functions of the technology, which should be also presented to the healthcare providers to make them aware of changes. Furthermore, this type of management has to overcome various difficulties during the process of implementation such as resistance of workers of the organization. As a result, change management is an integral part of the adoption of health information technology.

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