Improvement of communication between patients and caregivers enhances quality care. Previous studies have shown that the introduction of commit to sit enhances communication and improves the perception of patients about the quality of care. During the commit-to-sit session, patients can access formal information recorded in documents. Adherence to treatment plans and reduced readmission cases improve whenever communication is enhanced. Stakeholders, planning, and resources are essential for the success of the intervention.
Management and Leadership
Commit to sit strategy requires appropriate leadership and management measures. The leaders’ essential skills include problem-solving, team building, innovation, and vision. The hospital practices strategic and visionary leadership. Besides, the management practice that leaders will embrace is visionary leadership. A visionary leadership strategy ensures team members comply with the set goals. Leaders will set attainable and measurable goals, ensuring that all team members focus on attaining short- and long-term goals. Leaders will also inspire teamwork by encouraging and delegating responsibilities to team members. Transformational leadership would be appropriate because of change management (Aitken & Von Treuer, 2021). Hiring additional nurses and helping in training them to commit to sit will also be the management role. Such practices are only possible with effective leadership.
Additionally, introducing the commit to sit strategy will involve change management. The change management process will involve specific steps, including planning, implementation, evaluation, and closure (Etemadian et al., 2021). Planning involves the identification of the healthcare gap, the articulation of the goals, and outlining the timeline of the operation. The leaders will ensure that the involved parties are adequately informed of the need for the intervention; they should share the vision and goals of the intervention. The proposed strategies will have a positive effect on the healthcare organization.
Delivery and Technology
Introducing the commit to sit strategy involves the education of nurses and hiring additional nurses. Implementing the strategy may involve introducing additional technologies to increase the monitoring of different wards. Since the hospital is a 30-bed unit, the management will hire additional ten nurses and spend money on training the available nurses. Additionally, the hospital requires monitoring devices in the ward to monitor how nurses communicate with patients. Such delivery methods will be vital for introducing commit to sit strategy.
Training nurses on committing to sitting will be online and using an instructor. Online training will involve slide notes, audio, and videos with content on communication. Trainees will require smartphones, computers, and other internet devices. Online training will have various benefits, including convenience and self-paced (Wei & Chou, 2020). Learners can create their own time to read about communication improvement. Instructor-led training will include hiring a trainer and organizing the training sessions. Technologies needed for instructor-led training include MacBook, YouTube, the internet, and a projector for note projection. Such technologies would help the trainer to improve learning. The use of smart beds will also help management assess the technology’s implementation. Smart beds are some of the modern technologies that help monitor patients’ recovery progress, improve communication between patients and nurses, and the management can use them to detect how nurses are implementing commit-to-sit strategies.
Stakeholders, Policy, and Regulations
Various stakeholders are involved in healthcare settings. The most important stakeholders are patients, nurses, pharmaceutical companies, the government, health insurance companies, workers’ unions, hospital owners, and the community. Since stakeholders’ expectations differ, the management needs to serve them. Consultation is one of the most essential strategies of policy introduction. Stakeholders remain essential in any healthcare setting, especially in introducing an intervention. First, insurance companies use strict laws and policies on beneficiaries of their coverage, especially on the kind of disease to be covered and the length of hospitalization. Introducing the commit to sit intervention should be cognizant of such cover policies since the burden of cover might be left on patients. Next, nurses intend to ensure that those in the ward receive quality care. In the process of delivering quality services, their needs need to be prioritized. The hospital management should avoid overburdening healthcare workers with other communication roles and inadequate compensation. Patients remain the most valuable stakeholders because other stakeholders emphasize the needs of patients. Even though committing to sit intervention will give patients and nurses additional opportunities for interpersonal communication and limit cases of rushed discharge, cultural beliefs will guide the intervention’s implementation. Another stakeholder is the government, which has the ideology for policy intervention. Governments can have policies of equality or liberty. Equalitarianism ideology guides the government in offering equality in healthcare while relying on the libertarian government to allow patients the freedom of choosing healthcare. Equalitarian governments control healthcare operations and ensure healthcare accessibility to all patients. Such government would support the implementation of commit-to-sit strategies.
The introduction of the commit to sit strategy depend on the existing laws and policies guiding American health. The laws, such as the Affordable Care Act of 2010 and the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP), prioritize the needs of the patients (Ibrahim & Dimick, 2019). The patient-centred strategies are critical measures that each hospital must implement. Other organizations, such as The National Union of Healthcare Workers, require healthcare organizations to offer conducive working conditions for nurses, which will help them in offering patient-centred care.
A possible policy should be a mandatory commit to sit interventions in all hospitals. The national and local governments should initiate measures to improve communication between patients and nurses. A mandatory communication policy will compel hospitals to develop various strategies for increasing interpersonal communication between nurses and their patients.
Timeline of Operations
Introducing commit to sit strategy will involve various milestones. According to Lewis (2019), introducing organisational change involves planning, communication with employees, and implementing change. Commit to sitting is the change that the hospital requires in addressing patient dissatisfaction. These measures will be undertaken within one year. Planning involves determining resources, communication with patients involves winning the customers’ needs, and monitoring implementation involves checking weaknesses and recommending improvements. The first three months will involve recruiting additional nurses, while the next month will involve training nurses on committing to sitting strategies. Training sessions will run for two months. During training, the management will fit the hospital with the necessary technologies. For instance, fitting the wards with smart beds will be within the stated period. The subsequent three months will be the monitoring stage, where the management will determine possible drawbacks in the project implementation. In case of limitations, the management will recommend improvements.
Conclusion
Committing to sitting remains one of the most effective ways of increasing interpersonal communication between nurses and patients. The visionary leadership of the hospital will help develop the project’s goals and create effective teams. Technologies, including smart beds, will be essential for the delivery of the project. The operation will take one year and engage all stakeholders, including patients, nurses, and insurance companies.
References
Aitken, K., & Von Treuer, K. (2021). Leadership behaviours that foster organisational identification during change. Journal of organizational change management, 34(2), 311-326. https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JOCM-01-2020-0029/full/html
Etemadian, M., Mosadeghrad, A. M., Soleimani, M. J., & Hedayati, S. P. (2019). Leader characteristics in hospital change management: a case study. Hakim Research Journal, 22(3), 212-229. https://hakim.tums.ac.ir/browse.php?a_id=1997&sid=1&slc_lang=en
Ibrahim, A. M., & Dimick, J. B. (2019). A decade later, lessons were learned from the hospital readmissions reduction program. JAMA Network open, 2(5), e194594-e194594. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/article-abstract/2734796
Lewis, L. (2019). Organizational change: Creating change through strategic communication. John Wiley & Sons. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=PsB9DwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=the+process+of+organizational+change+management&ots=LrIVQPv4Xn&sig=WSLwAWOzgStI1H5ku482oa_LXX4
Wei, H. C., & Chou, C. (2020). Online learning performance and satisfaction: Do perceptions and readiness matter? Distance Education, 41(1), 48–69. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01587919.2020.1724768