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Change Management Skills for Hospital Managers

Regardless of the type of organization that you lead, change management skills can be difficult to acquire. In a hospital and health care environment, changes can be difficult to implement because staff, doctors and nurses can be entrenched in standard hospital operating protocols and procedures.

  1. Change Management Planning

    • Change management planning is what must be done before the change is implemented and executed. This step includes identifying benefits to the change, finding out what organizational buy-in you need to perform the change, performing a readiness assessment to determine how ready the organization is at that current time to adopt a change, and finally planning for resistance and how it will be managed. Resistance, especially in hospitals, can be difficult to deal with and it can induce a fear of losing control. It's essential to first identify the key stakeholders who will be impacted by the change, and prepare them first and equip them with the most information.

    Change Implementation

    • The execution of the change is the foremost important factor in change management. Your first step should be developing a communications plan to outline strategically how you will communicate, to whom and when. Implement the change management communications plan step-by-step, creating a checklist if you need to.

    Maintaing the Change

    • It's important to offer ongoing training and a central resource for people to go to when they have questions about the change. This is a part of the implementation procedure. If you can, be the face of the change and its sole communicator to naturally set yourself up as the leader and primary contact. Actively listen to the initial resistance and plan a follow-up communication to tie off the change's initial implementation.

    Change Reinforcement

    • Determine how you can best measure the benefits of your change program. Try to benchmark the post-change environment against the pre-change environment to justify the change. Continue to offer training, manage resistance in an ongoing manner and identify gaps in the actions taken as a result of the change, good or bad.

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