Instructions for Leadership Change Paper:

Observe your environment in the health care facility where you have clinical and monitor the site for signs and symptoms of the need for change. Look at the nursing processes in place: do they work efficiently, are infection control practices being done routinely. Anything can be a catalyst for change as long as it adds something positive to the establishment. Then, diagnose the problem that indicates a need for change.

1. Pick a change theory. Lewin’s change theory is used widely in nursing. Despite this fact, there are many other change theories you can use like Spradley’s theory of change, Lippitts change theory or Roger’s theory of change. Pick the ones that best suit the change you are trying to bring about.

2.  Put a plan together. Using your selected change theory, develop a plan based on each step of the theory you have chosen. Your plan should address what you will do to solve the problem you have diagnosed. It should include activities that will combat the problem and bring about change, a method to measure the success of the plan such as a quiz and a way to make the change permanent. Be sure to include a timeline or timetable for your change project. It needs to have a beginning and an end.

3. Type a 4-5 page double-spaced, APA formatted professional paper that describes your project and submit to your instructor at the end of the semester. The paper has to include:

o An introduction: Brief description of the issue & Purpose of the paper 

o Assessment of the environment which needs to be changed: Current practice, organizational structure, deriving and restraining forces, advantages of change, cost and resources for implementing the change.

o Planning: Goals of change, phases of change, timeline, how you will mobilize the driving forces and minimize the restraining forces and plan of evaluation

o Implementation: Needed training and education and methods

o Evaluation.

o Conclusion

Topic I’ve chosen: There should be a designated nurse in the emergency room whose sole duties are to discharge patients and do patient teaching upon discharge and there should be a discharge waiting area similar to the waiting area in admissions. Having the patients wait in the waiting room speeds up the turn around rate for available beds which gives patients waiting for a room/bed faster service to be seen. Often nurses see patients by priority with a patient waiting to be discharged being one of the least priorities it has patients who are deemed healthy and ready to go wait unnecessarily. 

Use the articles below to support my claims, also use Lewins Change theory to show how this change can be implemented. 

https://www.quora.com/Why-does-the-in-patient-discharge-process-in-every-hospital-take-so-much-time

http://www.lapazhospital.org/getpage.php?name=Patient_Discharge_Process&sub=Patients%2FVisitors

http://peblfeedback.com/pebl-fb/pebl/hospital-discharges-why-the-delays/

https://www.journalofhospitalmedicine.com/jhospmed/article/127886/discharge-noon

https://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2008/03/26/average-time-of-discharge-why-a-hospital-is-not-a-hilton/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4554014/