Intermountain Health Care Harvard Case Solution & Analysis

Intermountain Health Care

Critical issues

1. Management is trying to introduce a new IT infrastructure but they are unsure about the related cost of the project.
2. The company is applying a top-down approach. They have made a decision of improving the IT structure and implementing it without the consent of the physicians and other staff.
3. The affiliated employees are retaliating because of transparency and accountability that this IT structure will bring.
4. The physicians and nurses are not complying with the IT Integration Protocols, which is very crucial for the success of the project.
5. The management needs to figure out a way to bring the affiliated physicians on-board and create a sense of belonging among them.

Alternatives

• Implement Change Management

The infrastructural change is taking place on a very large scale. There are 15 hospitals involved in the group and other hospitals are also being built that will become a part of this umbrella. Thus, the Levis’ change management (Exhibit E) concept is extremely necessary. In the unfreezing stage, the benefits of the process to the staff shall be conveyed to them. This will increase their enthusiasm to learn more about the new project that is being implemented. Then in the transition phase, step by step implementation in different departments shall take place to ensure a smooth transition. In the end, the reward structure and performance indicators shall be developed for the refreezing phase. This process of change management can benefit the organization through developing adopters at a relatively faster rate than in normal conditions. However, the con of this strategy is that it will take more time in implementation. This will address nearly all the identified issues.

• Emphasize on the role of doctors and medical practitioners with respect to the Hippocratic Oath so that they can see the benefit of the patients rather than their personal clashes with the system.

As the other alterative, rather than showing them their demerits; the management can emphasize on the benefits that they can provide to the community through the embracement of this project. There are significant benefits as the quality of treatment will improve, they will have a real time data about the patients, they can treat relatively larger number of patients in a small time, and the chances of mistakes will be significantly lower.

• Use Bottom Up Approach

This addresses the second and third issue by using the bottom-up approach rather than a top-down approach. The selection of a representative from the physician body will help the management to detect the concerns of the physicians and address them. This will also help the management as they can express their point of view in front of the representatives so that they can explain it to the remaining staff members in a better and more convincing way. This will mutually benefit both the parties and will create a ladder towards the success of the project.

• Create Early Adopters through voluntary trainings and Workshops

The management can offer workshops and trainings for the physicians in which they will be motivated through activities and stories of the past in which the early adopters benefitted from this kind of project. Then they will be given a task of convincing other people through their ideas and speeches. Through this snowball effect, more and more staff will accept the project and the implementation will become easy and successful.

• Create sense of belonging

To gain maximum advantage, there is a need to create a sense of belonging among the employees. For this purpose, the management should create an open culture in which the staff can freely discuss the pros and cons of the new infrastructure. One of the best ways to communicate acceptance is through validation; which builds a sense of belonging among the staff and strengthens relationships between them and the management. Validation is the acknowledgement that someone's internal experience is understandable and helps you to stay on the same side with a sense of belonging, even when you disagree.

• Provide Monetary and Non-Monetary rewards to those who generate better results through embracing the new infrastructure.

The last but not the least alternative is to provide Monetary and Non-Monetary rewards to those, who generate better results through embracing the new infrastructure. When a few staff members will see others being rewarded, they will also be carried towards the embracement of the project.

Conclusion &Recommendation

IHC is working for the benefit of the society. However, the intentions of the management are to have a contradiction with the views of staff members and the physicians. The alternatives generated to solve the critical issues are not mutually exclusive and thus more than one of those can be applied to ensure the success of the project for the mutual benefit of the IHC, community and the physicians.

It has been a fact that rewards have created more positive results than punishments. However, the psychology states that ..................................

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