Discuss how preventing healthcare-associated infections requires both a change in behavior and a change in the organization’s culture.
The prevalence of undesirable complications that arose from health care associated infections (HAI’s) has been a subject under review for a long time now (De Bono, Heling and Borg, (2014). The rate at which these infections manifest within patients is significantly high. Previously, these infections emanated after a patient was admitted at a health care facility (acute-care medical center) but now these infections affect patients at other health care centers too. To this effect, there is need to come up with preventive mechanisms against HAI’s. For instance, stakeholders and policy makers within the medical fraternity can incept innovative and impeccable facility-level interventions that will be a mechanism for both the medical staff and the patients to strive for organizational change.
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On the other hand, it is important to take note that organizational change is logically aligned to change in behavior with respect to coming up with preventive strategies against HAIs. Organizational and behavioral change mainly encompasses the changes in practice that are witnessed at the organization level with specific regard to the culture, design, processes, structure and the mannerisms that are elicited within a health care facility. The health centers with the help of the management and medical practitioners should be in a position to enforce change and consequently educate the staff on the changes. Change in an organization is not only inevitable but continuous. Change can be enforced within the leadership context, implementation of contact precautions, critically analyzing hand hygiene practices etc.
Discuss for a change to work, healthcare providers must work in teams and hold each other accountable at every level.
Organizations are continuously becoming unstable and dynamic. Changes in the medical organizations have provided for an increased reliance on team efforts and an enhanced complexity with respect to the members of a particular team, the skills required and the susceptibility and vulnerability that is involved. Polin et al., (2012) asserts that team work is an essential component in the determination of the success of health care organizations. Change in health care organizations can either take the form of ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ management. Change is key in that communication is enhanced, stability is achieved and each ‘player’ of the health department is required to carry out different mandates and is held accountable.
Health care practitioners are tasked with the responsibility of improving efficiency and quality within medical and care centers. They do this by incepting and working in line with quality improvement initiatives and performance management systems. Holding each care provider is not only because of accountability reasons but also the organizations strife to maintain the culture of accountability that consequently affects the success of the organization (De Bono, Heling and Borg, 2014). The aspect of accountability incorporates the processes and procedure in which a medical practitioner justifies his or her actions and decisions in their quest for achieving organizational success. Accountability ensures the prevalence and responsible use of healthcare resources whether human, physical or financial.
Explain if leaders make zero-percent healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) a personal goal, how others will likely follow.
Leaders play a vital role in health associated prevention activities (McAlearney et al., (2013). It is important for the leaders to participate and come up with effective HAIs prevention strategies. Prevention of HAIs is a costly measure and one that results into significant morbidity. Based on the above notion, some hospital leaders actively participate in the prevention strategies while others do not. Statistically speaking, the role played by hospital management is a great and significant factor in the determination of the success of HAIs prevention framework. It is imperative for one to take note of the behaviors and mannerisms that are often elicited by hospital management with respect to successful implementation of HAI prevention mechanisms.
The success of HAI prevention can be greatly attributed to leaders acting as motivational figures to other hospital personnel in the quest to prevent HAIs. In the case where leaders do not provide for adequate support, it makes it difficult for other hospital management to come up with preventive strategies to the problem statement. According to Zingg et al., (2014) it is important for hospital leadership to work as a team and harness all the necessary resources thereto to manage and control these. One fundamental step that they can participate in is ensuring that they cultivate and develop a culture clinical success and educate the medical staff on the policies and procedures that have been mandated (McAlearney et al., 2013). Also, it is only through the help of leadership that barriers to prevention strategies can be overcome and dealt with for maximum productivity.
Explain how encouraging others to embrace infection prevention protocols require effective communication skills, even in the face of confrontation.
Effective and efficient verbal communication skills used in persuasion and encouragement is based on variable factors that are indistinguishable from other interpersonal skills inclusive of listening skills, non-verbal communication and clarification. Health Associated Infections have been on the rise and each year, a substantive number of people die due to these infections. For this reason, Petty and Cacioppo, (2012) explain that communicating effectively to groups of people, patients, medical practitioners, policy makers, the government etc. is a step in ensuring that efforts and strategies to avert these infections are incepted and practiced thereby greatly minimizing the prevalence of HAIs.
First impression matters especially when addressing a group of people within the medical field (Petty and Cacioppo, 2012). The impression that the audience gets by just looking at you greatly determines te success of the communication process. People have expectations on initial group settings. With the help of great interpersonal and communication skills, such expectations do not get mismatched. Colloquially, such communication will be successful in bringing people together to fight and prevent health associated infections. At some point, questions and clarifications may be sought. It is important that the speaker listens to the keenly and provide adequate answers. The use of presentations to depict some of the health associated infections and their consequent effects inclusive of the death statistics and patterns may be a strong communication tactic to encourage prevention of health associated infections.
- Cimiotti, J. P., Aiken, L. H., Sloane, D. M., & Wu, E. S. (2012). Nurse staffing, burnout, and health care–associated infection. American journal of infection control, 40(6), 486-490.
- De Bono, S., Heling, G., & Borg, M. A. (2014). Organizational culture and its implications for infection prevention and control in healthcare institutions. Journal of Hospital Infection, 86(1), 1-6
- McAlearney, A. S., Hefner, J., Robbins, J., & Garman, A. N. (2013). The role of leadership in eliminating health care-associated infections: A qualitative study of eight hospitals. Leading In Health Care Organizations: Improving Safety, Satisfaction, and Financial Performance, 14, 69.
