Changing organizational culture in healthcare has a lot of barriers, oftentimes, internally. Healthcare change management will even sound daunting to your healthcare organization’s stakeholders. An article by Airiodion (AGS) says that some healthcare organizations are immovable when it comes to implementing organizational culture shifts. This is because they see the healthcare organizational culture as their “DNA.”
It’s human nature to be resistant to change, but progress and competency augmentation are happening. We then realize the importance of cultural competence in healthcare. Changing organizational culture in healthcare requires constant updating as the healthcare landscape undergo time, technology, and needs-induced changes. The pandemic is a good example as it forced healthcare organizational cultures to change across the world so that they could respond to the sudden medical crises.
The healthcare organizational culture must improve its ability, to not only care for patients of all kinds, but also improve the capability of health workers of all ranks.
Imagine a medical doctor intern being loudly reprimanded by a senior doctor in public for overlooking hypercalcemia in his young patient. The senior doctor uses strong language. Unable to handle the public humiliation and feeling incompetent, the intern jumps in front of an oncoming train. He dies as a patient in the same hospital where he works. This incident pushes the entire healthcare organization to rethink, re-examine, and redo their organizational culture.
It may surprise you, but culture and healthcare go hand in hand. When creating or changing the healthcare organizational culture, you need to eliminate harmful behaviors and habits. After that, you have to instill the habits and behaviors that are favorable to your healthcare organization as a whole.
As a healthcare leader vying to transform your organization’s culture, you need to take stock of the current culture, draw out the desired future state, and phase in the expedient strategies and business processes. A change management strategy is essential to ascertain that the change is done methodically and sustainably. Learn how to do all of these by enrolling in the Healthcare Change Management certificate course offered by Genashtim in collaboration with eCornell.
eCornell courses are approved by SkillsFuture Singapore for SkillsFuture Credit as well as by HRD Corp Malaysia under its SBL-Khas Scheme.