1. Who are the stakeholders and how would you communicate information
about the transition with them?
Stakeholders
- Medical staff, including consultants (senior doctors – “consultants”
below will always refer to these medical staff members), junior doctors and
nurses and paramedics.
- Support staff such as receptionists and those dealing with
administration.
How to communicate with these individuals
- Make use of any existing communication channels already favoured within
the hospitals and/or wider Trust
- Recruit change introducers from the various departments, who can conduct
group or one-on-one sessions with their colleagues
- Set up a helpdesk and make clear how this can be contacted
- In terms of style, make sure that communication is honest. Admit that
there might be some downsides – though emphasise that these will be heavily
outweighed by positives.
- Attempt to generate excitement/anticipation/engagement with a sustained and
well-considered communications campaign.
2. What other issues might come up and how could you address these?
- How can we be sure in advance of the transition that staff can actually
use the system correctly?
- Does this system benefit all the different staff members who will use it?
- How can we be certain that introducing this system is the correct
decision?
Some good solutions might be:
- Implement good quality training, potentially including testing, to ensure
that all staff are fully competent with the system.
- Where required, design incentives tied to rapid adoption of the system.
- Work with the Trust to devise success metrics based around their key
priorities with the system – thus, we will probably assess success as some
function of time savings by staff and uptick in patient outcomes.
3. How should the transition’s success be measured and what could you
do if senior staff are resistant to the transition?
- How should we measure the success of the transition itself? Over what
time period should this assessment be made?
- Senior consultants will often resist the rollout of these kinds of
systems and might refuse to operate them within their departments. How
would you deal with this possibility?
A good answer might contain the following:
- We should assess the success of the project via goals set at the outset.
For example, we might require a minimum of 75% transition to the digital
system within six weeks and a 90% transition within 10 weeks.
- Where senior consultants are hesitant to implement the system, the first
course of action should be to engage with these individuals to voluntarily
bring them on board with the project. A positive case in terms of the
benefits of the system should be made. We should be honest about any short
term inconvenience in getting to grips in the new system, but demonstrate
the net benefits that will eventuate in helping to reduce administrative
demands on overworked medical staff whilst simultaneously saving patient
lives. Having in place objective success metrics (mentioned in 2. above) in
terms of staff time saved and improved patient outcomes should make these
arguments more persuasive. Attention could be drawn to how the system
addresses any of the department’s current problems, as well as the
additional tasks staff now have time to perform.
4. What is your concluding synthesis of the information you have been
provided with?
The candidate’s main conclusions should be the following:
- The transition affects staff right across all departments and levels in
the hierarchy.
- There should be comprehensive training for all staff involved.
- The transition should be communicated not simply as a top-down
imposition, but as an initiative with significant positive benefits for
both staff and patients.
- It is important to measure both the progress of the transition, as well as
the positive outcomes it brings about for the Trust.