Forces Driving Change – HealthWays Inc

Forces Driving Change – HealthWays Inc

My organization, HealthWays Inc., is in the healthcare sector. It is a nonprofit entity that seeks to offer affordable healthcare to the neighboring community. The organization seeks to ensure that community members access quality care at affordable rates. Its commitment to excellent care is demonstrated through mobile clinics, prevention programs, wellness plans, transportation services, and community-based projects. These elements, which are all affiliated with HealthWays Inc., seek to make preventive care easily accessible and curative care affordable and support the process of improving the lifestyle of the community members by first ensuring that they are healthy.

Mission

To enhance the community’s well-being through the promotion of health and lifestyle improvement

Key stakeholders

HealthWays Inc. has both internal and external stakeholders. The internal stakeholders include the employees who offer services to the patients and manage the facility. The board members who oversee the activities of the organization are also important to its operations. The volunteers and donors who offer skills, expertise, time, and financial resources to the facility are counted as internal stakeholders. External stakeholders include the patients who need the services that the organization offers. The nearby community is a significant stakeholder in the organization because HealthWays Inc.’s actions affect them directly. Finally, the governmental agencies that regulate healthcare in the locality and other healthcare providers are critical stakeholders.

The external and internal forces that drive organizational change in your field or industry

The main external forces that drive organizational change at HealthWays Inc. include the community, which consists of the main patients, governmental agencies, and other healthcare providers. HealthWays Inc. provides care to the nearby community. Thus, a larger portion of the patient population comes from this community. The community, therefore, holds sufficient ability to cause changes by voicing their concerns, stating their likes/dislikes, and highlighting their needs. The gaps that other healthcare providers fail to address become the facility’s concern due to its commitment to the wellbeing of the community. In addition, the lack of profits in healthcare delivery activities eliminates any cases of conflict of interest, pushing the organization to do its best with the available resources. In addition, the governmental agencies that govern healthcare also drive change. For instance, the Joint Commission, which is an accreditation body, creates rules, standards, and regulations that must be observed for certification to deliver health services (Siddiqui, 2017). It also requires that healthcare providers possess the necessary licensure to practice. State regulations also demand compliance from the facility. Thus, HealthWays Inc. management is bound to comply with the various rules and regulations that govern healthcare in the specific state.

The internal forces that drive change include employees, donors, and the board of members. Employees are drivers of change due to their critical role in delivering healthcare to the community. The board of members and management alike value the employees’ input because they encounter the daily challenges that are associated with the delivery of care to the community. They are best placed to highlight gaps and areas that cite non-compliance. In addition, their welfare is critical to the facility’s management. Concerns regarding their satisfaction can also drive change to ensure that their motivation and morale remain high. The donors can also drive change at HealthWays Inc. if they raise concerns regarding the facility’s expenditure. The facility should be able to achieve the goals of its sponsor in healthcare within the specific community. Failure to do so should lead to reviews and changes for improvement.

As highlighted, the changes from external and internal forces can be caused by the need to comply, fill gaps in healthcare delivery, improve the work environment, and fulfill the goals of the sponsoring body in healthcare. Each change has a profound effect on the organization. When employees’ work environment and satisfaction improve, their productivity also improves. This leads to better goal achievement and improved service delivery. Compliance is critical for accreditation, which increases the organization’s credibility (The Joint Commission, 2020). In addition, regularly reviewing the strategies that are expected to lead to goal achievement is important to ensure that HealthWays Inc.’s actions are aligned with the objectives. Failure to remain aligned with the goals presents a risk of loss of relevance in the healthcare industry. Thus, each of the changes plays a significant role in ensuring HealthWays Inc. remains viable.

The community/patients

This external group of stakeholders is a force to reckon with because they are the main reason for HealthWays Inc.’s existence. They are likely to highlight issues related to the lack of telemedicine at the facility. Emergencies and the lack of sufficient resources to visit health facilities have necessitated the presence of telemedicine. The mobile clinics that the facility offers still cannot solve this problem. The need to manage costs is critical to the facility. Therefore, it is impossible to visit patients in their homes. Despite the difficulty of providing care, a nonprofit organization does not create a gap by offering poor-quality services. This is because the facility competes with other for-profit organizations that offer quality care for profit. Patients who value quality are likely to turn to these providers, which renders HealthWays Inc. irrelevant (Roundtable: Competing as a Nonprofit, 2019).

To respond to this challenge, the facility’s management, board, and donors need to assess the community’s needs and the cost of digitized care. The assessment should consider the advancements that other players in the same market have made in the same field. It should also consider the various ways that other market players are utilizing digitized care without exceeding their budgets. A cost-benefit analysis should reveal the main costs associated with such care and the benefits that clients stand to gain from the same. Secondly, the same assessment should highlight the skills required by employees to successfully manage the digitized care platform. This aspect should reveal the gaps in the workforce that need to be addressed prior to setting up a digitized care platform. Thirdly, employees should be engaged in the process to understand their perspectives about the patient’s concerns. Such engagement allows employees to air their opinions regarding digitized care and the best way to go about it. It also reduces the chances of resistance to this change. Finally, the entire group should plan strategies around setting up the required infrastructure by defining roles, delegating responsibilities, and setting goals and strategies.

Employees’ response

The response from employees regarding the proposed change is dependent on the organization’s approach to the issue. For a positive response, the engagement of employees in the issue that is being resolved is necessary. Employees are involved in the daily delivery of services. They interact with the community members throughout their workdays. Thus, they are in the best position to understand the gaps and needs that need to be addressed; for these reasons, involving the employees in the management’s issue allows them to provide their perspectives regarding the issue (Lawrence, 1969). This involvement makes employees feel valued and enables their active participation in the change process (SHRM, 2021). Thus, such involvement ensures that the staff members respond positively to the change with minimal resistance.

Vision for change

To ensure that HealthWays Inc. leads the market as it pertains to the delivery of healthcare services, it is necessary to continuously improve. One such improvement opportunity is digitization, which should increase efficiency, accessibility, quality of care, positive health outcomes, and promote ease of delivery and monitoring of patients. The adoption of digitized healthcare delivery will distinguish HealthWays Inc. from other healthcare organizations in the locality and accelerate its ability to fulfill its main mission.

The proposed vision for change is directly related to the organization’s mission due to the targets that each intends to achieve. First, both seek to serve the community through the delivery of healthcare. Second, both seek to improve the well-being of community members by ensuring that positive outcomes are sustained. Thirdly, the process of ensuring the community’s well-being is enhanced through the adoption of digitized care, which should eventually lead to the improvement of community members’ lifestyles. Thus, the vision for change seems instrumental in catalyzing the achievement of the organization’s mission.

The main considerations that internal stakeholders may pose are related to the direct and indirect costs for the adoption of digitized healthcare. The initial cost is expected to be significant because of infrastructure. In addition, employees need training on the utilization of the same infrastructure. However, these costs will be spread out because of the lack of additional expenses. The benefits have also proven to exceed the costs, which implies that the organization will achieve its mission better through the proposed change.

References

Lawrence, P. R. (1969). How to Deal With Resistance to Change. Harvard Business Review.

Roundtable: Competing as a Nonprofit. (2019). Health Leaders Media, pp. 18-22.

SHRM. (2021). Managing Organizational Change. Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/toolkits/pages/managingorganizationalchange.aspx

Siddiqui, A. (2017). Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325036764_JCAHO_-_Joint_Commission_on_Accreditation_of_Healthcare_Organizations_-_National_Patient_Safety_Goals_MOH_SAUDI_ARABIA

The Joint Commission. (2020). Accreditation Guide for Hospitals. Retrieved from https://www.jointcommission.org/-/media/deprecated-unorganized/imported-assets/tjc/system-folders/topics-library/171110_accreditation_guide_hospitals_final.pdf?db=web&hash=A4AA2E4B34B5E47F6DD59FFE7CDBA20F

ORDER A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE

We’ll write everything from scratch

In a written paper of 1,250-1,500 words, evaluate the current forces driving change in your field or industry. As a leader, or considering the role of a leader, assess your organization, evaluate how well it is responding to the forces, and identify where there is a need for change. Develop a vision to inspire this change. Include the following:

Forces Driving Change – HealthWays Inc

Describe your organization, include the organization’s mission, and identify the various stakeholders.
Identify the external and internal forces that drive organizational change in your field or industry. Explain the origin or reason for these internal or external driving forces. Explain how these forces directly affect the viability of your organization.
Choose one of the driving forces. Describe the specific issues this driving force creates or will potentially create for your organization or department.
Propose the steps needed for your organization or department to respond to this driving force.
Predict how employees at various levels in the organization will respond to your proposed change initiative.
Develop a vision for change. Describe how this vision correlates with the organization’s mission and how you will present this vision to internal stakeholders.
Predict how you think your vision will assist internal stakeholders in supporting the change initiative. Identify potential considerations posed by stakeholders and discuss how you will respond.
Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.