Change Management in Healthcare - Rapid Response Team

Running head: CHANGE MENEGEMENT
Change Management in Healthcare
-Rapid Response Team
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1CHANGE MANAGEMENT
Introduction (Rapid response team)
Rapid Response teams (RRT), also called the Medical Emergency Team or MET is a
specialized team of healthcare workers and providers that responds to the early warning signs
of deterioration of health among hospitalized patients in the non-intensive care wards in order
to prevent the risks of cardiac arrest and respiratory failure (Jones et al., 2015). The RRT also
specialized to provide advanced life support and early resuscitation of the patient. The team
can be comprised of nurses, physicians, pharmacologist, cardiologist and respiratory
therapist. The aim of the team is to reduce the risks of cardiac arrest and respiratory failure
outside the intensive care wards of the hospital and thus minimize mortality rates in the
hospital (Braaten, 2015). The aim of a change project is to bring about an organizational
change strategically to utilize new opportunities for growth and development for the
organization and employees using innovation, critical thinking, problem solving and strategic
decision making (Heckmannet al., 2016).
The following study the implementation of a change project within Rapid Response
Teams (RRT) in order to enhance their efficiency, performance and responsiveness to
emergency medical situations outside the intensive care unit.
Context for change
-Setting where the change will take place
The setting for the study includes a hospital (clinical) setup
-Who will be affected?
The change process would affect mainly the nurses as well as the patients and
stakeholders. Improving the efficiency, performance and responsiveness of RRT would
improve the competency of the team to minimize the risks of fatality of the patients due to

2CHANGE MANAGEMENT
cardiac or respiratory failures and therefore would enhance the performance of the
organization and healthcare workers as well as protecting the health and wellbeing of the
patients. Improving the organizational performance can moreover would also impact the
leadership of the organization through improved productivity (Joneset al., 2015).
Review of literature (three peer reviewed journals on possible solutions)
Using continuous improvement strategies such as PDCA cycle: According to
Kryzanowski et al (2018), the performance of the team can be continually improved by using
the PDCA cycle. The cycle is a four step iterative process that involves planning, performing,
monitoring and improving. This provides a strategic approach through which the performance
of the team can be constantly evaluated and assessed and thereby improved. The author
pointed that PDCA cycle can be used effectively by the human resource management and
project management to bring about an improvement in the effectiveness and quality of the
process and thereby improve performance. This provides an adequate justification to use the
PDCA cycle in the given context.
Incentivizing change process of change: Shen et al. (2017) suggested that by incentivizing
the process of change program can increase involvement of the staff in the program and thus
help to ensure its effectiveness. The author further recommended that the process of
incentivizing can act as a positive reinforcement for engaging in the change project and
support better evaluation and improvement of the performance of the team. Moreover,
incentives can also foster better job satisfaction as well as employee loyalty. Thus, by
offering incentives, it is possible not only engage more staff in the program but also support
better success of program by motivating the members more effectively.
Appointing change agents: This strategy involves selection of a member/employee/staff from
the RRT to function as change agents, advocating the necessity for change and facilitating