Application Of The Nursing Staff At Dwu Virtual Hospital

In the nursing field change is a daily reality. The continuing improvements in health care mean that there are continually changing ways to provide health care. Anyone who has been in the nursing field for any amount of time is sure to have uttered the words â€Å"Do you remember when we used to†¦?† From a nursing point of view not all change is positive, and not all change is welcomed. Every change is however aimed at providing the best care and achieving the best possible outcome for the patient. This project will outline the process that will be used to introduce the nursing staff here at DWU Virtual Hospital to the change of implementing electronic medical records. Change Model Leaders have a selection of change theories to review†¦show more content†¦This plan will begin with smaller unit meetings led by the unit manager. Next, training sessions in virtual patient records will be led first by managers and then by peers. In the third and final stage the EMR will be implemented and all staff will be responsible for ensuring the proper use of the EMR. Change Plan Design To initiate the plan we will begin with the first stage of Lewins Theory, unfreezing. The unfreezing process is the process of creating a time frame for staff to become ready for the change (Huber, 2014). Management will need to inform staff of the upcoming change. This should be done in a small unit meeting with only the nurses and unit manager present. Keeping the meeting small will help prevent any feelings of being intimidated and will go along with the shared governance system recently instituted. In this meeting the manger will present researched facts regarding EMR implementations. Among these facts would be the fact that having an EMR will save time. Nursing staff will have access to all previous records and will no longer need to wait for other departments to obtain these records (Gagnon et al. 2010). Also having an EMR system encourages teamwork between the healthcare and support personnel in a facility (Gagnon et al. 2010). For example, nursing will be able to look at the radiology and lab schedule and coordinate with them on times for patient testing. During this meeting