Question

Your group is responsible for ensuring that the acquisition of the Primary Care Provider Clinic is successful. Changes must be initiated that enhance employee productivity and support the clinic in showing a positive financial gain. As part of your responsibilities, you are charged with coming up a plan of action to initiate change, help employees transition, and ensure that the effects of the change become long lasting.

Create a PowerPoint presentation (12-15 slides, including your References slide) to illustrate your plan of action. What would your plans and steps for intervention include? Include detailed steps for planning, change implementation, employee interventions (introducing and preparing them for change), and handling resistance to change. Use Lewin's change model to develop a plan to successfully maintain and enhance staff productivity.

Primary Care Scenario:

Care in this type of setting is delivered by physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, and advanced practice professionals. This area of health care is the most widely used, and it is a major focus of the Affordable Care Act of 2010, focusing on primary care providers and decreasing the focus on the utilization of specialty providers. A physicians’ group is negotiating the acquisition of a primary care provider’s clinic. The primary care provider’s clinic, which has incurred financial loss over the last 6 years, is being sold for the second time within the 6-year period. In a meeting to discuss the acquisition, the team responsible for ensuring the success of the acquisition is told that the shareholders of the clinic are very apprehensive and distrustful of becoming a sister company. When the last company bought the clinic, the leaders of the parent organization prepared the employees of the clinic for a great deal of change. These leaders promised that the proposed changes would improve the stressful conditions and financial losses the clinic was currently operating within. The shareholders worked diligently to prepare for the changes. Unfortunately, most of the changes never took place, and the small changes that were initiated did not last. As a result, the initial announcement of the acquisition was met with great apprehension and distrust.

Answer 1

You can create your presentation with the following main and subtopics -

1st slide : provide breif introduction to the scenario which is about the Primary Care provider Clinic take over.
A group of physicians has decided to take over the Primary Care provider Clinic wherein care is provided by by physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, and advanced practice professionals.The problem lies in the attitutde of shraeholders of the clininc being apprehensive and distrustful of becoming a sister company. This attitude makes the change process , which is required and would take place after acquisition of the clininc, very difficult resulting in poor productivity and losses. The further slides will emphasize on Lewin's model to suggest ways so that change management in the clinin could be made successful.

2nd Slide : Introduce with What is Change management - Change management is a process of undertaking various activities to implement change successfully and reducing the resistance to change in an organization.
Lewin's model of change management - Lewin has provided a model thorugh which change management can be implemented successfully. This modle suggests three phase which are unfreezing, changing and Refreezing.

3rd Slide : Applying model of Lewin in change management for Primary Care Provider Clinic -
Lewin model can be applied to handle change management in the clinin so that the attitude of shareholders and staff can be changed towards change and various hurdles could be removed in the oath of implementing changes that would come through the process of take over.

Phase 1 - Unfreezing - In this stage the change managers are required to first identify what are various core factors/variables (Like cultural norms, atttitude towards work and care practices, attitude towards change process, various operating practices in the clininc, pay structure, etc.) This is all required to break the existing status quo in the clininc that is creating problem in change process. For example, One cultural norm may be casual attitude towards coming at time in clininc and working at emergency. Coming at time and being available at clininc for emergency cases is crucial which should be present in cultural norm of any clininc. Thus this norm of being casual at this variable need to be change. Next this will involve developing and communicating compelling message showing that why existing practices or atttudes or norms can not work anymore. It would involve emphasizing negative outcomes of such practices, its negative effect on the staff itself and on the clininc overall. For example making them learned and understand and feel that having casual atttitude towards being present at emergency is not only unethical but would also influence their career and professional life. The message should be challenging towards these variables in manner that does not create stress on the recepient (staff) of the clininc rather they get chance to think differently , in another way.

Phase 2 - Changing - Earlier the staff was charged with some negatiity in terms of factors varibales that should not be continue any more (like casual attitude towards being present at emergencis). Now after the phase of Unfreezing they are neutral and have drope off the ngative charge. In this phase they will made accept some positive charges in place of the dropped off negative charges. Uncertainty created in the unfreezing stage which now need to be resolved in changing stage. Now messages should be made in order to make the staff embrace new directions (like new practices). This stage will take considerabel time and will require employees to be engaged through various sessions, training modlues, on job off job training, motivating seminars, encouraging reimbursement like those who perform well in on job trainig giving them reward etc. Managing the situtaion is extremely important especially for those who really get harmed with change for example those old age health care providers who have worked in those practices from ages and have created revolved their lives around those practices only.

Phase 3 - Refreezing - This occurred when the change is taking shape and people have considerable started embracing new ways. New sense of stability is required to be instilled. Now stable new organization charts are made, consisitence new job descriptions should be provided. When new things are instilled and incorporated into place, staff will get new sense of stability and will get confidence in change, Through out the whole process, communication should be very effective, easy flowing and positive rewards and reimburesements methods should be preferred over negative ones.