From helping facilities stay fully staffed to reducing the work associated with payroll and other administrative processes, customized workforce solutions like Managed Service Providers (MSPs) have become a transformational tool for many healthcare organizations. However, many leaders can feel hesitant to embraced MSPs and other solutions — perhaps because of their perceived complexity or change management concerns.
Uncover how employers can embrace the power of the latest change management processes and revolutionize your approach to implementing MSPs and other workforce solutions.
Why Ensure Successful Change Management for MSPs or Workforce Solutions?
At their best, healthcare workforce solutions like staffing, recruitment, and managed services programs (MSPs) provide clinical teams with more time and flexibility to do what they do best. That is, deliver excellent care to the patients and residents they serve. Yet getting the most from these programs also requires carefully integrating them within an organization’s larger operational workflows.
Moreover, there’s good reason to make sure that MSP implementation processes include careful adherence to change management best practices. According to the National Library of Medicine (NLM), “almost two-thirds of all change projects fail for many reasons, such as poor planning, unmotivated staff, deficient communication, or excessively frequent changes.”
For that reason, the NLM recommends that all change management initiatives, “no matter how big or small, unfold in three major stages: pre-change, change, and post-change.” If the scope of implementation is larger than expected, it can increase the chances of success. Additionally, it can also deliver the desired return on investment, as well as boost outcomes and operational advantage.
>Did you know? Leading MSP providers, like CareerStaff, are careful to include out a detailed implementation process with each solution. This means making use of change management best practices at every stage, from strategic planning through to implementation.
4 Steps: Change Management for MSPs and Workforce Solutions
When used as a model for implementing a new healthcare workforce solution, this framework for change management can be mapped out into four separate steps: planning, buy-in, education and monitoring.
#1: Pre-Change: Create a Formal Plan.
Successful integrating the services of a healthcare MSP, vendor management system (VMS) or healthcare staffing partner requires clearly defining goals, budget and metrics for success. Healthcare organizations shouldn’t assume this is standard, but doublecheck to make sure any new program includes this important step as the starting point for program design.
These planning sessions must also involve full collaboration between program vendors and facility leaders. Although a number of industry best practices can and should be embraced when implementing workforce solutions, building a program that’s customized to meet each organization’s specific needs can’t be done from boilerplate. Extensive consultation and planning sessions are necessary to ensure successful change management in every area — operationally, clinically, culturally and technologically.
#2: Pre-Change through Post-Change: Involve Everyone.
An all-too-common stumbling point for change management in healthcare is lack of buy-in from key members of the continuum. In other words, a program build with the active participation and feedback from clinical teams is more likely to be successful than one that’s build without their involvement, and then imposed on them.
“All healthcare providers, at the bedside to the boardroom, have a role in ensuring effective change,” as the NLM explains. “These stakeholders should include staff from all shifts, including nights and weekends, to create peer change champions for all shifts.”
The NLM suggests choosing representatives from various groups to act as change agents or managers. They should be involved in setting both short- and long-term goals, as well as creating troubleshooting protocols and action plans. This approach also encourages regular communication among employees from different departments.
> Shopping for a new MSP? Don’t Miss: 9 Questions to Ask Before Choosing a Managed Service Provider
#3: Change and Post-Change: Emphasize education and validation.
Ensuring successful change management in healthcare workforce solutions means not just involving everyone but also providing them with the information they need to succeed in their roles. Therefore, it’s crucial to have resources in place to help clinicians overcome barriers when adopting a healthcare MSP solution.
To this end, education may need to be extended to change agents, facility administrators and even patients or residents. When implementing a new program that involves changes in scheduling or caregiver assignments, it is important to minimize the impact on the individuals receiving care and their families. Additionally, proactive communication should be provided with an open line for any questions or concerns.
Among with education, program builders should be careful to ensure that workers receive validation for their success in embracing the changes required of them.
“One of the biggest mistakes a change leader can make during the midst of change implementation is failing to validate that staff members are performing new processes as planned,” the NLM authors emphasize. “Ongoing leader engagement throughout change execution will increase the chances of success.”
#4: Post-change: Monitor performance.
Lastly, monitoring performance can make all the difference in change management and MSP implementation. Once the program is in place, the job of the MSP or workforce solutions provider is to offer the means to continuously improve it. Such means involve tracking key data from the program and then setting up the metrics to judge it upon. And these metrics include resident retention rates for a skilled nursing facility, for instance, or patient fall rates for a hospital.
Additionally, it is key to maintain meetings among the change management teams established earlier in the process. Subsequently, these can allow for regular feedback on performance and problem-solving opportunities. The NLM authors recommend “periodic spot-checking and continued data monitoring” to confirm the new processes as the status quo, and to help prevent employees from reverting to old behaviors.
> Pro Tip: Ensure Program Success with Our Healthcare MSP Implementation Checklist
Optimize Change Management for MSPs with CareerStaff
Trust CareerStaff to help you achieve your goals. Partnering with a top MSP or healthcare workforce solutions provider can help ensure effective change management from planning to implementation.
Moreover, whether you’re seeking per-diem nurses or aiming for a comprehensive MSP solution, CareerStaff is your trusted partner in delivering expert guidance and ensuring a seamless, successful implementation. Contact us to learn more about our clinical workforce solutions, or request a consultation today!
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Last Updated on September 27, 2023