Essay 1 (angela)

Implementation strategies in health care organizations can have barriers that restrain the effectiveness of their plan. These barriers can be due to lack of accountability, lack of commitment, inadequate instructions to the employees, people are not fully rewarded for executing of the plan, inadequate directions are given by departmental managers, and changes for responsibilities of employees were not clear (Latiff, Gohar, Hussain, & Kashif, 2016).

Ways to eliminate or overcome barriers in an organization are not done by just one person, but by many actions and everyone in the organization has to be a partner to implementation (Swayne, Duncan, & Ginter, 2013). The ways to remove barriers is having each level of leadership have clear communication to their employees of what their goals are and how they are to achieve those goals. It is also important to keep employees engaged and participating in the planning process. Make sure their voices and opinions are heard through the planning process. When employees are able to participate they are able to better understand their roles and goals for the organization. It is also necessary to hold employees accountable for their assigned work tasks and set goals to achieve. If an employee is not meeting their goals then this is putting the implementation behind schedule or at jeopardy of being completed. It is important that the employee or employees are aware that they will be held accountable for their job performance. Another primary reason implementation strategies are not implemented in health care organizations is, because there is no difference in resource allocation and reward distribution (Swayne, Duncan, & Ginter, 2013). People or employees concentrate on what they believe to be important, which is things that effect their budget or paycheck.

My hospital implemented Epic EHR system in October 2011 till May 2014 (Monegain, 2013). This was a huge undertaking for the health system and there was many people in my department that had worked for the system for over 20 years that didn’t want to have to learn a new system. They were a lot of resistant’s to change, which is a common implementation barrier. At the time I was working in the hospital billing department for Wyandotte Hospital. The system not only wanted to have all the billers change to the new system, but also have all the billers housed in the same building, which would be an additional 30 minute commute for most of us as well.

Some of the reasons there were setbacks was because the organization created no incentives and did not allow the employees to feel a part of the decision making process. They did not inquire about their opinions or advice on anything. Many of the employees were not learning the new system as fast as the organization would have liked. There was also 4 employees that either retired or left the system. Obviously, the EHR system was installed and runs very smoothly. It has been a great addition to our health system, however it is important for an organization to make all their employees feel valued and important in the decision making process or either keep them informed and motivated about the implementation strategies.

Essay 2 (Goran)

In healthcare, just like in many other business industries, barriers exist when implementation of strategy occurs. One of the most common barriers to the effective implementation of strategies is the lack of support from leadership. Overcoming or removing such barrier can be difficult solely because it concerns the leadership. One way to remove such barrier is to replace the leadership that is not supporting the implementation of strategy. This solution can be rather difficult due to replacement of leadership not being a simple task. As well, there must be an understanding of the root problem behind lack of support in order to not repeat the same mistake (Pexton, 2016). Another way to overcome this barrier is for workers to assemble a multidisciplinary team from various departments to carry out planning. Due to the lack of support from the leadership, it is up to teams to execute new strategy implementation. Adding combined experience, knowledge, and skills can strengthen the planning outcomes with implemented strategies (Nursing Times, 2015).

Common barrier when implementing a new strategy can be a resistance or skepticism from staff. One way to solve this barrier is to develop a stakeholder analysis and use a team-based problem solving approach (Pexton, 2016). Another way to remove this barrier is a strong leadership. Leaders must be able to improve skills in leading employees and work teams especially when implementing new strategies or influencing change. Furthermore, leaders must demonstrate both, emotional and behavioral intelligence in order to remove this barrier. This is where the leadership game is won or lost; it is not enough to have an understanding, but being able to show with actions and communicate with words. Leaders must do everything in their power to get the staff onboard with new strategy implementation as they are ultimately the ones who will carry it and contribute to it in major ways (Delmatoff & Lazarus, 2014).

Also, there can be hesitancy to invest time and money, which will directly impact the effectiveness of new strategy implementation. When the time comes to “pull the trigger”, there might be some hesitancy to invest time and money required to implement the strategy. It is important to remove this type of barrier because it can create a lack of support from certain leaders or individuals who are not able to see a value in this investment. This barrier can be crucial and the best way to remove it is by creating a case using real data. This will present a clear picture as to why such strategy is favorable – in terms of time and money – and since it is using a real data, it should get everyone on the same page and onboard (Pexton, 2016).

Finally, uncertain roles and lack of accountability can present a huge barrier when implementing a strategy in health care. In order to remove this barrier, adopting management systems and structures that clearly link projects and performances with overall strategies can solve the issue (Pexton, 2016). During strategy implementation lack of accountability and not defining roles clearly can create massive issues down to road in terms of overall strategy effectiveness. A great example regarding barriers during the strategy implementation was when electronic medical records (EMR) were starting to get implemented. This change required leadership support and clear understanding of each employees role and accountability. Physicians and leaders were held accountable and had deadlines in which they had to implement the system. On the other hand, employees were held accountable to complete training and be able to transition to the new strategy (Rizer et al., 2015).