Title: Implementing Leadership Rounding Process in a Healthcare Organization
Introduction
Effective leaders want their staff members to be fulfilled, loyal, and productive. Therefore, they should create a working environment that facilitates these goals. Information and time are two important factors that determine the success of leaders. Many leaders face the challenge of knowing or understanding the challenges faced by their employees, address them, and deal with other tasks. Therefore, they should adopt proven strategies to manage their employees effectively. One of the evidence-based approaches is “rounding” (SaferHealthcare 2013), which is an approach used in healthcare to check on patients and even on the way health care providers work to achieve their care objectives. It is an effective tool to enhance the quality and safety of services offered to patients. It enhances the level of leadership visibility in an organization for improved outcomes. I have focused on leadership rounding to learn and understand the importance of purposeful conversations that emphasize positive outcomes and critical elements of patient care.
Goal Statement
I am undertaking the practicum project to raise awareness of the importance of a structured executive leadership rounding process. My current organization lacks a structured rounding process for executives and consequently, fails to round as frequently as necessary to quality patient outcomes. The executives, the CEO, and CFO have not been taking the rounding process keenly, probably due to the lack of a structured rounding process. Rounding has been identified as a catalyst to a safer, more controlled environment, which enables staff to be more productive and effective in the care of patients. It also increases patient and family satisfaction, leaving them with fewer unaddressed concerns (Meade et al., 2010). Therefore, the goal of the practicum project is to propose an effective rounding process using evidence-based tools and procedures to improve leadership rounding in my current organization.
Project Objectives
By the end of the practicum, I will have achieved the following objectives:
- Increase the level of trust between the executive leaders and the staff by increasing their visibility and demonstrate their interest in the daily organizational operations.
- Develop a structured rounding process and create an effective leadership-rounding tool as well as engage a champion from the board and on the executive team to coach on the rounding process. The team can then train other members of their cadre to do the same.
- Adopt the coaching process that would include rounding and demonstrating the process and behaviors and request that the executive and board member do the same with real-time feedback and critique.
- Gain an understanding of the barriers to leadership rounding through observations and conversations with leaders.
- By the end of week 7, I will present the new rounding process and tools to the leadership team to consider and implement, and hence improve leadership rounding in the organization.
- By the end of the practicum, I will have completed shadow rounding with feedback to organizational leaders to increase their comfort level with the process. The coaching will include rounding and demonstrating the process and behaviors and request that the executive and board member do the same with real-time feedback and critique.
Evidence-Based Review of the Literature for Project Justification
Simple changes make a huge difference in healthcare organizations because of the focus on the safety of patients and the quality of the care they receive. Changes affecting physicians, employees, and patients have a huge impact on health care organizations. According to Purvis et al. (2017), the initial step to improve the care that patients receive is to ensure that leaders work with an effective, committed, and dedicated workforce. Leadership rounding is a critical part of a successful organization. My Rounding Solutions, LLC defines leadership rounds are “scheduled, structured activities in which executives, managers, and even board members purposefully walk through their organizations talking to staff members and patients while gathering actionable and real-time data” (SaferHealthcare, 2013). It is a process through which leaders reveal a high level of concern for the work and services provided by the employees. Leaders work together with employees to build an effective organization.
Rounding has major benefits for employees that impact on patient outcomes. Research has proven that employees desire to work with a leadership that shows concern for their work. They aspire to operate in an organization with a purpose and leaders who communicate it clearly and collaborate with employees to work towards achieving it (Kenney, 2016). Employees want to feel that their job is worth and that their leaders appreciate their efforts. Besides, they want to make a difference in their organization. They are motivated when they get positive results from their work. Baathe, Ahlborg Jr, Lagström, Edgren, and Nilsson (2014) revealed that rounding achieves many other objectives, including supporting positive employee, patient, and organizational outcomes. In rounding, leaders concentrate on staff satisfaction, retention, and create loyalty towards the organization.
Regardless of the benefits of rounding, various barriers to the process are evident, which should be addressed effectively to improve the process. One of the limitations is the lack of an effective rounding process and leadership commitment. In many organizations, leaders fail to take rounding seriously and therefore, do not perform it as effectively and frequently as necessary (Reimer & Herbener, 2014). Another barrier is a lack of trust between the leadership and employees, which prevent meaningful interactions and communication. It becomes a challenge when leaders fail to work with their employees successfully to improve health care outcomes for patients (Studer, Hagins Jr. & Cochrane, 2014). Employees might consider the process as inspection or a routine meeting to check their work and penalize them for failures, while leaders might disregard the process for fear of a negative response from employees. Such barriers can be addressed effectively by creating and implementing an effective rounding process, with tools and procedures that leaders can follow.
Methodology- Plan, Do, Check, Act
The method that will be used to implement the practicum project will follow the Plan, Do, Check, Act model.
Plan: Identification and analysis of the problem or opportunity, developing the hypothesis regarding the issue to test through data collection and analysis. The hypothesis to be tested in the project entails creating effective rounding tools and procedures that will improve the process and generate positive employee, patient, and organizational outcomes.
Do: The process involves testing the potential solution to the problem and measure the outcome. The solution is a proposed systematic and structured rounding process to be implemented in the current organization. The measure of progress is the effective integration of the program into the work process.
Check/Study: The process involves a study of the results, measure the impact, and determine whether the change has achieved its objective. After implementing the rounding process, I will assess the procedure to determine whether the proposed solution has achieved its objective.
Act: The solution is implemented and integrated into the work system if found effective and confirmed to achieve its objective. Rounding process will become routine in the organization.
Resources
The necessary resources to implement the rounding program include the finances to pay educators and obtain supplies to train leaders regarding the rounding process. It will also require printing materials and a computer to create the necessary training materials and procedures for the rounding process.
Formative Evaluation
Formative assessment is necessary to find out the progress of the project in achieving the stated objectives. The formative assessment will be conducted after implementing the solution by collecting data from the hospital to establish the progress in following the rounding process.
Summative Evaluation
A summative evaluation will be carried out after the project is implemented, and the rounding tools and procedures are already in use. Data will be collected from the organization to establish the impact of the rounding process. Employees and leaders will provide data regarding the benefits or lack, therefore of the implemented project. Patients will also provide data to establish the effect of the rounding process on their level of care and satisfaction with services.
Timeline
The project will be implemented over three months to create the project deliverables and begin using it in practice. The initial step will entail planning the rounding program, the second month will involve project implementation, and the third month will involve using the program and performing a formative evaluation. Summative evaluation will be conducted after the third month, one month after implementation.
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