Care Clinic Improvement Project

Introduction

Patient contentment is a crucial element in the functioning of any health center and should, therefore, be taken into consideration while dealing with health matters pertaining to patients. It is a common indicator used to measure the quality of health services delivered. Patient satisfaction affects the stability of every clinic in issues such as patient retention, clinical outcomes and the malpractices that arise from medical claims. Decrease in client satisfaction is a very vital problem that needs to be addressed well to improve the nurse’s courtesy and friendliness so that these scores can be dealt with. The decrease in client satisfaction is a good topic to focus on since the Affordable Act enacted in 2010 was put in place to ensure that patient satisfaction is improved. However, this has not been the case since patient satisfaction scores have been going down and down due to poor quality health care provided at the hospital and also due to negative experiences by the patients while receiving care in hospitals. Therefore, as a nurse manager I aim at ensuring the decrease in client satisfaction is improved by looking at both the courtesy and friendliness of health care providers.

Decrease in patient satisfaction is an issue that requires everyone’s attention and contribution so that this situation is eliminated. The decrease is caused by the health cares lack of using the right courtesy in dealing with the patients and poor quality health care delivered in the hospitals also results to decrease in the patient satisfaction. Health care offered by nurses of any health care providers serve as the main reason for the continued decrease in patient satisfaction. Quality of health care matters and when this quality is not provided by medics then the patients will go home dissatisfied by the poor quality of care. Medics need to associate with their clients well by possessing qualities of courtesy and friendliness to the patients. When these qualities are absent then patients are not satisfied with the services offered leading to decrease in levels of patient satisfaction (Kupfer & Bond, 2012). Patient satisfaction should be a measure of every hospital’s quality of services offered. These reasons should be addressed to improve patient satisfaction.

Leadership Dynamics

Leadership perspective presents values that need to be incorporated to ensure that patient satisfaction issues are dealt with accordingly. These values are working together regardless of being employees or employers, neither subordinates nor superiors allowed, honest and open communication, access to information, focus and no successes and failures. The first value defines the requirement of every stakeholder within the hospital to embrace change. Working together enables the changes made to be well received and this will enable them to work together as one. To achieve this spirit, it is necessary for every person to identify himself with the health center or the hospital. In this situation, a win-win environment is enhanced. Nurses associate themselves with their job which enables them develop virtues that are aimed at caring wholly for their patients. Patients and health care share mutual benefits from their relationship. The second value is aimed at ensuring balance and synergy for all the workers of the hospital. This value works in encouraging everyone that the work of every personnel is very important. This value might be controversial but mostly it aims at building an environment whereby the benefits of everyone are reaped. To ensure that patient satisfaction is improved, then the benefits of every person should be taken into consideration. Working together for everyone to benefit is also a guide in this value. The third value which is honest and open communication presents the importance of communication between the health providers and the patients. Patients need to be open and honest while answering questions to do with their health. Health providers on the other hand should also posses’ qualities of open and honest communication. This will ensure the relationship between the health providers and patients is well maintained which will in return lead to quality health care. Honest and open answers regarding the health of the patient should be the words that health specialists should embrace so that patient satisfaction is improved. The other value is access to information. In leadership dynamics, the value of information access is very vital (Drescher, Korsgaard, Welpe, Picot & Wigand, 2014). It ensures that within the organization or health institution every member has access to information of every operations within the hospital. Information should be dispensed to every person. Patients need information about the available doctors and the treatments that are offered in the health center they are interested in. Why is this important? This is very important since it ensures that the patient and every member has access to the right information about the services offered which will consequently lead to quality services improving patient satisfaction. Focus is very vital in every working environment. Focusing on the processes involves focusing on the duties of each personnel within an organization. Every nurse should be focused in what he or she does. This will ensure that quality health care is delivered unto the patient. Quality health care culminates to patient satisfaction (Tsai, Orav & Jha, 2015). Systems change ensures is all about experience. Creating change is very necessary hence the last value which is having no success and failure. This means that every person should work having a mind of change. To change the current situation which is decreased patient satisfaction to an improved one should be the guide. Don’t focus on success because there might be success but the situation remains the same? Therefore, the major aspect of the value is change with no regards of success or failure.

Strategic leadership is very vital. These strategies of leadership are visioning, foresight, partnering and motivation. Leadership foresight is very necessary while dealing with any matter so that a change is enhanced. Foresight involves how the leader views the matter or the perspective by which the leader sees the matter. Being a manager calls for one’s duty to view the situation from a leadership perspective. As a manager, the decreasing patient satisfaction issue is a problem that requires everyone’s contribution. Having the right trends regarding the changes that take place is necessary here. All the perspectives need to be employed here. In order to improve the situation, foresight is very necessary since it opens ones mind to different ideas in dealing with the issue. The leader should have the ability to know the causes of the problem. The decrease, is it caused by the nurses and doctors negligence or do the patients play a part also? This are questions that a leader should ask himself or herself. Being a nurse manager those questions play a big role in ensuring the problem is dealt with and well managed. Vision is also very necessary while tackling issues. Vision helps a leader to see the company some years to come where it will be. The same applies with a manager. I have the responsibility of ensuring that in the future, scores to do with decrease in patient satisfaction are dealt with and eliminated. Partnering ensures that a leader teams up with people who have the same visions as him and also with those who have other methods that can be used to solve the problem at hand. A nurse manager can team up with other nurses in the hospital to facilitate the establishment of changes to end the menace. As a manager, involving all the other stakeholders of the health institution will ensure the problem is solved. Involving them will ensure that every person understands the cause of the problem which they should work aiming at tackling the issues. Motivation is also very crucial. Motivate workers to do their work well which will ultimately lead to quality work. Nurses should be motivated so that when patients are discharged they’ll go home happy about the services rendered unto them. Quality of services comes as a result of motivation from the overall leaders (Fenton, Jerant & Bertakis, 2012). That’s why as a nurse manager, motivation drives me and that’s why motivation is needed to ensure that change is enhanced in any health institution. To change the decreasing patient satisfaction, the strategies of visioning, leadership foresight, partnering and motivation need to be put up in health centers and hospitals.

There are three components of relationship based area. The first one is the framework improvement amongst healthcare providers, patients and their families. This component is very important since it ensures that the relationship between the nurses which are the health providers and the patients is improved. When the relationship between them is improved, their families are also featured in the relationship too. This makes the patients happy and cheerful about the services rendered to them which improves patient satisfaction. The other framework enhanced is healthcare providers’ relationship with themselves. This will ensure that they are motivated for the duty or not. The last one is the relationship between the healthcare members with one another. The way the healthcare providers affects the quality of health care delivered hence it is very important to ensure that they relate well so that patient satisfaction is enhanced (You, Aiken & Sloane, 2013).

Change Model

This change model will have some elements that will facilitate in changing the decrease in patient satisfaction to an increase. These elements are readiness assessment, communication planning, feedback and corrective plan, recognition of change, resistance management and provision of resources. Readiness assessment is aimed at using assessment tools that will ensure that the changes are implemented. This provides challenges and opportunities that would be used to tackle the challenge of patient dissatisfaction.  Communication planning involves determining what to communicate, when to communicate and the audience to be communicated to. As a manager, communication should be aimed at ways which will bring change in improving patient satisfaction in a health center (Suhonen et al., 2012). All the elements are aimed at a collective assistance in ensuring decrease in patient satisfaction is dealt with.

The change model is applicable for the customer service since it incorporates all its elements that are all aimed at ensuring that the decrease in patient satisfaction will not be witnessed again. The change model is also made in a way that the courtesy and friendliness of healthcare providers will be enhanced ensuring that their relationship with patients is dealt with so that they improve the quality of health care provided unto them. The model also inputs provision of resources which will also improve patient satisfaction. Shortage of some resources is also one of the things that have caused decrease in satisfaction of patients hence introduction of more resources in hospitals as stipulated in the change model will improve patient satisfaction.

As a leader roles towards change is very vital. Therefore, one of the roles of a manager is ensuring that the change model is implemented and as a leader am devoted in ensuring the change model is implemented which will end the menace of decreasing patient satisfaction by improving it (Hall, 2014). Involving all stakeholders is also a role that supports the change since stakeholders will see that the change is implemented and well embraced. Skills of management is what guide me in ensuring that the elements of the change model are implemented. Some of these skills include planning, management and team work.

Course of Action

The key stakeholders that will be involved in creating change are health providers, management staff, patients and all the subordinate staff. This is necessary to ensure that the changes enacted do not negatively affect any stakeholder.

Some steps will be take to ensure that this problematic area is dealt with. These steps are identification of the issues, understanding everyone’s interests, listing the possible options, evaluation of options, selection of options, monitoring of agreements met and contingency evaluation (Zgierska, Miller & Rabago, 2012). These process will address the gaps and problems due to decrease in patient satisfaction. This will definitely culminate to improved patient satisfaction.

Conclusion

Top sum up, decrease in patient satisfaction can be dealt with by addressing the challenge head on and by use of strategies of leadership which are monitoring, visioning, partnering and foresight. In addition, a change model that focuses on strategy and a problem solving action plan should also be incorporated to solve decreasing patient satisfaction.