Essay Example on Redesigning Healthcare Workflow for Improved Efficiency

Date Workflow refers to a group of activities, chronologically placed together into processes needed to accomplish various tasks. It entails the means and the set of resources or people required to perform an operation. When workflow procedures begin to fail and develop workarounds, the processes have to be redesigned to eliminate the flaws (Ozkaynak et al., 2016). The main goal of redesigning the workflows in the healthcare setting to increase their efficiency and performance. However, redesigning the workflow may not be a simple progression due to a number of obstacles that may hinder the process.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

The entire procedure of workflow redesign is complicated as it entails asking staff members to change the methods they work with and are comfortable using them. Individuals are always rigid and resistant to change. Therefore, convincing healthcare givers and the rest of the staff on the significance of redesigning the program is not simple. Redesigning workflows interferes with the staff roles, time allocations, and responsibilities as it realigns jobs, which require the consent of the entire clinical practice team (Ozkaynak et al., 2016). However, their resistance and reluctance to accept alteration of the current processes is an obstacle to redesigning the workflow.

Moreover, workflow redesign in the clinical setting cannot be done smoothly due to disruptions and interruptions. In case of intermissions, the attention of the redesigning team shifts to identify the interrupting agent, thus disrupting the procedure (Rohm et al., 2013). Additionally, clinicians carry on with their normal activities, providing care for the patients while still using the primary workflow system, which may interrupt and disrupt the redesigning process. Frequent disruptions and interruptions may make it hard for the IT professions to redesign the workflow successfully. Also, lack of incentives is a significant limitation to redesigning the workflow. The redesigning team has to convince the senior management of the significance of making such changes at the specified time. In case the team does of offer compelling reasons, no incentives will be released to support the redesigning process (Ozkaynak et al., 2016). The executives and senior managers always focus on minimizing costs; hence the team should have viable reasons that would influence the top leaders into financing the required resources especially when redesigning health IT.

References

Rohm, T., Skidmore, N., Bharadwaj, M., Hammoud, B., Gray, T., & Lloyd, K. (2013). Urgent care EMR implementation and workflow redesign. Journal of international technology and information management, 22(2), 85. https://search.proquest.com/openview/36dcb2d5dd5e854f326e74be0aae948a/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=51771

Ozkaynak, M., Unertl, K. M., Johnson, S. A., Brixey, J. J., & Haque, S. N. (2016). Clinical workflow analysis, process redesign, and quality improvement. In Clinical informatics study guide pp. 135-161. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-22753-5_7