Please help me respond to my fellow student's discussion question below:

Vision is essential to facilitating successful change in an organization because it works to guide healthcare organizations through implementing change. It also serves as a point of reference to show the path towards progress, in order to motivate teams to embrace transformation. Particularly in healthcare, vision is a crucial element to drive successful change. Therefore, vision that tend to work best are those "that are so clear that they can be articulated in one minute or written up on a one page; that are moving-such as a commitment to serving people; strategies that are both enough to make bold visions a reality; paying careful attention to the strategic question of how quickly to introduce change" (Kotter & Cohen, 2002). Next, leaders play an important role to implement successful change since their vision sets the tone to inspire others to rally behind the cause. A leader's unwavering belief in a change initiative can ignite passion, instilling confidence in the team to navigate unexpected problems that may arise. "Leading change by creating and articulating a clear and compelling vision, potential, or possibility is a strategy that works, but is not often used" (Huyer, 2014). When leaders articulate a compelling vision, it can gain more support in order to overcome barriers such as resistance to change and transition to embracing innovation.

An example of a vision that I have seen that I feel was inspired by successful change is implementing a simple measure such as applying warming caps to all our unstable trauma patients to prevent hypothermia in these patients. This simple addition to the trauma care process is cost effective, timely and is an easy application of the product. This vision influenced people's behaviors and attitudes toward further improving our hypothermia prevention measures in our emergency department by motivating all trauma care personnel to not forget about hypothermia prevention. With the application of these warming caps into practice, the trauma department went further to adjust the ambient temperature of the trauma rooms and have bear huggers in every room. These simple additions to the trauma rooms have definitely made hypothermia treatments for our trauma patients become an easy intervention to implement. Overall, by having a clear vision and articulating the change to all staff, leaders can work more efficiently to implement change.

References

Huyer, D. (2014). Leading Change through Vision. Leadership Excellence, 31(6), 19.

Kotter, P., & Cohen, D. S. (2002). The heart of change: Real-life stories of how people change their organizations. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press. ISBN-13: 978-1422187333