Abstract
The main of this paper is to focus majorly on the implementation problem of new technology for controlling and limiting medication dispensing errors in Springfield General Hospital. The Hospital experiences confusion over drugs with same names, prescription errors and insufficient attention to the synergic impacts of multiple patients allergies were the rampant problems the Hospital faced. Change is an important aspect that requires time to transform in order for the organization to be innovative, and it can bring hazard consequences as witnessed in the Springfield General Hospital. Change makes an organization to be reliable, but it can also come up with errors and little solution, especially when there is no cooperation (Spector, 2013). The Hospital went through all these problems because of the wrong dosage, physicians lacking understanding of the instruction. Same medication appearance also became an issue making the Hospital subject the patients to deep problems. Therefore, this study introduces solutions to the structure of the Springfield Hospital in order to change and fixes the prescription to the patient.
What went wrong?
Springfield General Hospital implemented technology in order to confront its problems by introducing computerized physician order entry (CPOE) to the Hospital. The primary principle of the Hospital concerning the introduction of technology was to help the doctors to be able to prescribe drugs to the patients (Boyne, Law & Walker, 2005). The introduction of the technology in the Hospital brought lot mistakes; instead of helping the Hospital to curb the problems it brought errors, confusion when prescribing drugs with similar names, insufficient attention and it brought impacts to the patients. Concerning the introduction of the software to the Hospital, most of the staffs seemed to be reckless about the implementation and giving pieces of advice to the human capital about the weaknesses and strengths of the software system.
It is vital that when an organization wants to implement a new system, it should calculate the benefits of the system in order to move on with the process of innovation. Any Hospital should put more concentration on the new system to curb some of the dangerous mistakes. Springfield General Hospital introduced computer technology with the desire to upgrade its system to achieve the goal of preventing rampant mistakes and errors when serving patients. The system was poorly controlled, making the Hospital lose the desire of providing quality services to the patients (Radtke, 2013).
One of the primary problems with the system introduced to the Springfield General Hospital is that it had poor quality control. The system resulted in poor communication among doctors because they were not able to verify the identification of the patients. The system failed to provide the correct information concerning the right drug prescription to the patients (Cowan, 2013). This is because the technology had several screens, making it hard for the doctors to verify the medication process and amount of dosage. Another issue was concerning the names of the patients, which could not appear on the software system, and this led to medication errors on the patients. Therefore, most of the patients ended up dying because the doctors, at some point, became confused to provide the patients with the right medication.
There was also a problem concerning dose prescription, for instance when the drug has been prescribed for 30 mg, only 10 mg could be found in the pharmacy stock (Cheema, Naeem & Batool, 2017). This brought a lot of problems because on the CPOE order screen 10 mg is not the correct recommended dosage and therefore, this led to prescription errors in the Hospital. Most of the patients, instead of improving their conditions, they became worse because of the wrong drug prescription leading to more complication to the patients. Drug prescription errors are considered to be common in most of the Hospital ending the lives of most of the patients because they are either taking the wrong medicine or they might be overdosing or overdosing because of the prescription errors (Pasricha, Singh & Verma, 2018). Therefore, it is vital to ensure that most of the Medical practitioners are adequately educated on matters of prescribing drugs to the patients and use highly evaluated and approved system to provide health services to the patients.
Change problem
Innovation is vital because it should ensure that there the services are improved, efficient and quality. Springfield General Hospital opts to solve the mistakes by mishandling the medication process. The administration should accept that they took the wrong perspective based on how they implemented the system. It is essential for organizations to implement new technology to transform and improve their services. Thus, the Springfield General Hospital needed to consider this factor, but instead, the administration took the whole matter lightly subjecting patients to severe consequences (Chepul, 2020).
Implementation of a new system helps in improving the process of attending to the patients, and in most cases, it should benefit the Hospital. For the system to be effective, the organization should ensure proper communication among employees and be able to analyze the feedback. Changes require content, the process, and how it should be implemented (Spector, 2013). The aim of Springfield Hospital was to improve quality, but quality requires an implementation process to access the goals of the organization. Implementing change may be hard and challenging because it pushes most of the people from the comfort zones. The organization can help the employees to accept change by adjusting the goals and the plans of the organization in order to meet the standard required for change.
Solving the Problem
Springfield General Hospital could not implement change to enhance daily tasks; therefore, the Hospital should focus on implementation and communication to fix the problems. The administration of the Hospital should embark on staff training plans and put more focus on patient care and manual operation (Cowan, 2013). This helps the workers to have confidence because they can be able to provide quality services according to the goals of the Hospital. Based on the patient evidenced-based practise, communication is a vital tool that builds relationships and promotes transparency. Based on the research done by the Australian Institute of business, proper communication plays a role in;
Relationship maintenance
Contributing to success
It helps to manage employees
It promotes innovation
Another solution to the problem faced by the Springfield General Hospital is to ensure that all medicine prescription made by the physicians and treatments should be entered to the IT network of the Hospital(Radtke, 2013). The computer entries should be made available to the hospital staffs, including pharmacy and treatment staffs. Synergy should also be promoted to the staffs, and one vital observation is that new technology should be a help to improve the leadership style and improve the communication process but not adjudicating medical errors.
Biblical perspective
Leadership is an essential element in most of the companies; it helps the organization to achieve the set goals in an effective way. Change within the organization should be implemented by the leaders and ensure that it improves the service provision. Most of the people fear change, and they become reluctant to implement change because of the cost involved. In the Bible, God tells more about leadership, the Book of Hebrews 13: 7 (KJV) says that recall your leaders especially the ones who spoke to you about the word of God and consider their way of life an emulate their faith. Mathew 4: 19 (KJV), says come and follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. I will instruct you based on the way you should go and counsel with my loving eye on you that is according to Psalm 32: 8. This shows that communication is an essential aspect for every success, and therefore, leaders should implement proper communication, especially in the health sector, to curb medical errors. According to Romans 12: 15-16, we should rejoice together with people who are rejoicing and weep with whose are crying in ordered to live in harmony.
Conclusion
Change is significant for every organization, and it should be implemented wisely because most of the people to tend to reject it. In this paper, I came up with the best solutions to the problems of the Springfield General Hospital case. It is essential for leaders to understand the long term process of implementing change in order to transform the organization. It is vital to conform to the changes and ensures that everyone within the organization is able to accept it because it enhances efficiency within the organization.
References
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Boyne, G. A., Law, J. S. & Walker, R. M. (2005). Explaining the adoption of innovation: An Empirical Analysis of Public Management Reform. Environment and Planning: Government and Policy, 23(3), 419–435
Chepul, T. (2020, January 1). Process Implementation: How to Implement a New Process at Work in 2020.
Cowan, L. (2013). Literature review and risk mitigation strategy for unintended consequences of computerized physician order entry. Nursing Economics, 31(1), 27-31, 11. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.liberty.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/1317619124?accountid=12085
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