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Contemporary Organizational Evaluation

                Organizational change is a common occurrence in a firm, especially those within the health care field. Such businesses are focused on providing quality care to ensure a desirable patient outcome. Technology alongside other environmental factors, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, is some of the factors which prompt organizations to undergo through changes to ensure that they effectively adapt to continually offer quality services. Baylor Scott & White Health is one of the firms that have undergone through a technology change. This paper explores the case of Baylor Scott & White Health and how well it has responded to change.

Description and Change

                Baylor Scott & White Health is among largest not-for-profit care system located in Texas in the US (Baylor Scott & White Health, 2016). Baylor Scott & White Health is one of the healthcare organizations which have embraced change to ensure that the health outcome of the employees is effectively observed. Notably, the COVID 19 pandemic required that the care professionals should observe the fundamental measures put in place to curb the spread of the virus. One of the measures entails observing social distancing as a means of preventing the spread of the virus. As a result, Baylor Scott & White Health embraced the se of the Digital Front Door as a technological change focused on changing the way the non-profit making care business offers its services to the consumers while ensuring that they maintain social distancing (Drees, Dyrda & Adams, 2020).

                The digital front door technology is effective since it provides a health system website alongside a mobile application whereby the patients are provided with a patient portal. The use of this technology enables the patients to schedule their telehealth visits and also go through requisite patient education without showing up physically to the facility.

Degree at which the change is disruptive

Drees, Dyrda and Adams (2020) state that amidst the social distancing era, the manner in which the consumers interact with their service providers is increasingly changing. Notably, during this time, the consumers and the providers are increasingly valuing the digital experience. This situation has also proven to be true for the health systems and care providers. Increasingly, people are visualizing the “digital front door” as the first impression whereby the potential patients can access the healthcare services through the online platform (Drees, Dyrda & Adams 2020). Despite this, it is evident that embracing this technology for businesses was also going to prove to be a significant challenge for the business as it would damage the reputation of the firms. Drees, Dyrda and Adams (2020) record that the use of the system would result to potential job loss for care professionals as evident in the case of Baylor Scott & White Health which lay off approximately 1,200 members of its workforce.

The huge number of people who lost their jobs due to the change implementation within the firm is significantly high. This suggests that the change process has proven to be disruptive to a greater degree despite the fact that the derived benefits are also high. Notably, The change resulted to a significant disruption to the manner in which the organization does its business. However, the firm responded to the change dynamics through establishing and environment and capacity needed to incubate its new technology and observe its offerings to the consumers (Drees, Dyrda & Adams, 2020). Moreover, the business addressed the disruption by formally setting up the technology within the organization after engaging in a road mapping practice that suggested that the technology change would result to an increased growth and better performance (Drees, Dyrda & Adams, 2020).

Strategies Implemented to foster change by Baylor Scott & White Health

                Baylor Scott & White Health relied on communication as a strategy implemented in the firm’s change plan (Baylor Scott & White Health, 2016). The focus was to ensure that instances of internal resistance to change do not affect the implementation process. The company’s management communicated to the staff about the change before its actual implementation (Robinson, 2019). This strategy proved to be effective by promoting the change’s success by discouraging resistance.

Impact of the Change on the Stakeholders

Implementing the digital front door at Baylor Scott & White Health positively influenced the stakeholders. For instance, with the technology, the patients could access care services from the comfort of their homes without exposing themselves further to the coronavirus infection (Baylor Scott & White Health, 2016). However, the employees were negatively affected in that many of them lost their jobs in the process. The fact that many of the employees lost their jobs resulted to a high level of resistance, to a greater degree, towards the implementation of the change. However, the employee resistance was effectively addressed since the firm successfully implemented the change (Cameron et al., 2016)

Change Implications

The implementation of digital front door technology positively affected the interdepartmental collaboration at Baylor Scott & White Health. Notably, the technology blends different healthcare systems spanning various departments within the organization. This proved to be effective in facilitating an interdepartmental collaboration within the firm. Evidently, accessing the services offered by the various departments was simplified under a single application which could be easily accessed by the patients (Bradbury, 2014).

Personal Opinion

I believe that the leaders effectively prepared and responded to the change. The fact that the technology was effective in maintaining social distance and providing the consumers with all the basic services that they could access from the facility suggests that the idea was well thought off and effectively implemented. Notably, overcoming the resistance and successfully implementing the change also indicates that the leaders thought of how to effectively respond to resistance and derive the benefits of the change.

It is evident that communicating with the staff members about the change is an effective factor which worked successfully to promote the change. This was desirable in including the employees in the decision making process, and hence assisting them in overcoming resistance to change (Neill, Linjuan & Cen, 2020). It is evident that the leaders failed to create an urgency for the change which discouraged the process from taking place sooner.

Addressing The change dynamics

To address the change dynamics, the leaders at Baylor Scott & White Health should establish a sense of urgency to change by ensuring that all the stakeholders understand the benefits of the change (Oldenhof, Stoopendaal & Putters, 2016). Moreover, the leaders should show their passion and commitment to the change to encourage the subordinates to follow their footsteps without resistance (Evans, 2020). To ensure that the firm continues swiftly through the change, it is advisable that the leaders should educate its subordinates about the general benefits of implementing the change. When the stakeholders understand the benefits of the change, they will all share a common vision of achieving the goals of the change process(2017) study employed, there are very little room for generalizing the study’s findings.