When working to grow a practice, change will be inevitable. Changes in staff, office workflow, scheduling, services, and billing, are all just a few examples. Change does not have to be scary or disruptive if handled correctly. It can be the engine to improve the quality of care that you deliver to your patients if leveraged properly.1 It all depends on how change is managed.
Effective leaders can reduce uncertainty and overcome barriers to change amongst themselves and their team. These include apathy, low morale, and stakeholder buy-in.1 Within an eyecare practice, stakeholders could be anyone from office staff to practice owner(s), or even a board of directors.
Below are seven ways to help you beat the growing pains of change and effectively implement change in your eyecare practice.
7 steps for seamless transitions in eyecare practices
1. Question the need for change
Before you make any change in your practice, you must be able to answer the following questions.
- Is this change evidence-based?
- How will I measure success?
- Who are my key stakeholders?
- Can the current team dynamic within the workplace handle the change?
- How does this change connect to the mission and vision of the practice as well as my stakeholders?
2. Conduct research
There needs to be evidence to support your change if you ever hope to get any level of engagement from your stakeholders. People want to know that this change is coming after serious consideration. You must connect the change to the shared vision of your team and the practice. Successful change initiatives have visible, positive outcomes that benefit stakeholders and patients directly.1
There must also be a clear vision of success and a means to track it. The translation of knowledge into action is paramount to change. Studies show that healthcare teams that build and preserve positive work relations are essential to this.2
At present, is your team structured to succeed? If your team is currently in disarray, then now is not the time to implement change. Get your house in order first, otherwise, any change you try to implement will be doomed. Lastly, you must identify your stakeholders, as they will be the ones pushing this change forward and feeling the end results.
3. Engage stakeholders early.
The definition of a stakeholder is anyone who is involved in or affected by a course of action. Since they are the ones affected by your proposed change, you need to involve them early in the process. Their engagement is vital to the success of the change initiative.
Stakeholders are both the drivers of success and the restrainers of progress; therefore, enhancing communication and gathering consensus among process stakeholders through their full and informed involvement is a key factor for the successful implementation of change initiatives.3
Stakeholder engagement is a critical process for organizations to listen to, collaborate with, or inform their existing stakeholders. When done well, stakeholder engagement can uncover potential risks and conflicts within the organization or practice. Relieving uncertainty, reducing dissatisfaction, and helping with misalignment can help overcome resistance to change.
Key stakeholders need to be aligned with the strategic direction so they can become advocates for the mission.4 Additionally, stakeholders may contribute relevant knowledge and experience that can help the change be more sustainable, and more likely to be hardwired for the long run.5
4. Plan, plan, plan.
You have researched your change and engaged with your stakeholders, now it’s time to plan your change. You need to create a clear and concise definition of each deliverable in terms of format, size, and quality requirements. If the change initiative is complex, it’s best to break it into manageable phases.1
Key stakeholders must be involved in the planning of all change initiatives. They are a great resource for helping you better understand how the change will affect those downstream and how to break the work into manageable chunks.
Simple and clear projects are your friend, because as Edsger Dijkstra once said, “Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability.” The goal for all healthcare facilities should be high reliability and consistency over time. Change also spreads faster when the initiatives are not too complicated: simple is better.1
Healthcare systems have drawn on tools and methods from industrial engineering to improve quality and safety for years.6 There is no reason eyecare providers shouldn’t use them in their practice as well. Microsoft Planner and Microsoft Project are tools to help create Gantt Charts, assign tasks, and scope out plans for implementing change.
I also suggest process mapping, which is the visual representation of the process under analysis.3 The use of visual project plans and maps such as Gantt charts and process maps helps to improve your team’s understanding and connection to the work.6
5. Clearly communicate to your team.
The basic approaches to communicating change initiatives to your team are event-paced and time-paced. Event-paced announcements are unpredictable and not tied to an established cadence of meetings or announcements. Time-paced announcements differ in that information is shared and linked to future activities and projects at regularly scheduled intervals, such as monthly staff meetings.
Event-paced change communication allows leadership the flexibility to plan around the needs of the practice, not around an arbitrary timeline. Time-paced change communications provide for a smoother transition between past, present, and future events. Change spreads more rapidly when it builds on the current way of doing things.
6. Strategically initiate and implement.
A gradual introduction of change initiatives allows staff to feel in control. They are also more likely to recognize the need to change or to enhance skills to effectively adapt to new environmental demands.1 The momentum gained from small achievements can help the team power through inevitable setbacks along the way.
Timed intervals permit grace periods or transition times for people to accommodate to new changes.1 In order to be successfully achieved, any kind of organizational change requires new competencies. Change requires management and training;6 a gradual rollout will create space for everyone to learn and begin to master the new skills that change will require.
7. Monitor and adjust accordingly.
Good change management involves continual evaluation. What doesn’t get measured can’t be improved upon. A manager should have a cadence for the review of information about a project. This feedback can come in regularly scheduled meetings or written reports.
Projects rarely roll out perfectly. There will always be adjustments and changes to adapt to unforeseen obstacles and setbacks. Change develops on a nonlinear path, so plans must be altered or refined as circumstances evolve.6
Conclusion
It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change, according to Charles Darwin. This statement is just as true for most healthcare organizations.
If you question the change, research the change, engage your key stakeholders, and plan and monitor as you roll it out, you will better position your team for effective, sustainable change.
