WRITERS: NURS 8302 Week 6 Assignment 1: Organizational Culture Assessment Tool To participate in this Assignment: Week 6 Assignment 1
Quality improvement is critical for a healthcare organization’s efforts to offer safe and better patient care services. Therefore, a quality improvement initiative has to be formulated and implemented. However, the success of such an implementation effort heavily depends on the organizational culture (Mannion & Davies, 2018). The implication is that there is a need to assess the organization’s culture to evaluate the readiness for quality improvement initiative implementation. The purpose of this week’s assignment is to complete the organizational culture assessment tool for a healthcare organization and explore the state of the organizational readiness for quality improvement. In addition, the write-up will explore the leadership strategies present in the organization to support quality improvement, positive patient experiences, and healthcare quality.
The State of the Organizational Readiness for Quality Improvement
As earlier highlighted, the success of implementing a quality improvement initiative heavily hinges on an organization’s culture, which affects its readiness for a quality improvement initiative implementation (Fulop & Ramsay, 2019). As such, an organizational culture assessment tool (Appendix 1) was completed by responding to sixteen questions reflecting on various aspects of the organization’s readiness for quality improvement. In general, the organization looks ready for quality improvement; this is indicated in the answers to some prompts in the assessment tools. For instance, a strongly agree response was given for the prompt, “If a process, procedure, approach is not working, we can correct it with ease.” The response indicates that the organization is always ready to change a process or a procedure in a case where it is not working. This is where the quality improvement initiative comes in, where the organization will readily accept the proposed quality improvement initiative to improve the organization.
The organizational culture is also present for quality improvement. Quality improvement initiatives require the involvement of every staff. The organization’s assessment revealed that the organization uses tools and platforms internally to help collaborate and communicate more effectively. This is an indication that the culture is present for quality improvement. Collaboration and communication between various staff members will be key for successfully implementing the quality improvement initiative (Busse et al., 2019). Therefore, the organizational culture is likely to support the prosed quality improvement initiative fully.
Leadership Strategies Present in the Organization
The organization’s assessment also revealed various leadership strategies present in the organization that can support quality improvement, positive patient experience, and healthcare quality. One of such strategies is effective communication. The leadership has established well-defined communication channels and kept the channels open. The implication is that every staff and patient can communicate to the right person what bothers them so that action can be taken as appropriate. Such effective communication will foster quality improvement and positive patient experiences (Asif et al., 2019).
Another strategy present in the organization’s leadership is the willingness to delegate duty. Duty delegation and responsibility assignment make the staff feel valued and part of the organization. This ensures that the implementation of the quality improvement initiative will be successful since everyone will be involved. The organization leadership also fully supports various organizational administrators in proposals to improve patient care services. Such support will be key in improving patient satisfaction and healthcare quality (Asif et al., 2019). When various administrators receive the full support of the top leadership, they will accomplish the patient service quality improvement initiatives improving the patient experience and healthcare quality in the process.
Conclusion
The implementation of a quality improvement initiative substantially depends on the organizational culture. Therefore, it is imperative to embark on the organizational culture assessment to ascertain the organization’s readiness for the quality improvement initiative implementation. This write-up has presented an assessment of organizational culture and a discussion of the readiness to implement the quality improvement initiative.
References
Asif, M., Jameel, A., Sahito, N., Hwang,