On-Demand Learning Lab - Implementing & Sustaining Change Across Disciplines-August 2025 Learning Lab Handout

August 2025 Learning Lab Handout

Pdf Summary

This document summarizes Session 3 of a three-part “Driving Change in Healthcare” learning lab focused on implementing and sustaining change across disciplines. Presenters from Johns Hopkins Medicine and Sharp HealthCare discuss why change management is essential amid workforce challenges, safety goals, and financial pressure, and recap earlier sessions on frameworks, resistance, barriers, and psychological safety.<br /><br />Key content centers on choosing the right improvement or change method based on the problem type (e.g., PDSA for unclear problems, RCA/DMAIC for unknown root causes, Six Sigma for variation, Lean for waste, ADKAR for behavior change, and A3 for multi-team coordination). The session emphasizes assessing readiness across leadership support, stakeholder involvement, employee engagement and training, communication and feedback, organizational culture/history, and resources.<br /><br />A major theme is the human side of execution: change succeeds through frontline engagement and middle-manager enablement, not project plans alone. Strategies include aligning initiatives with strategic priorities, avoiding “initiative overload,” co-designing with staff to address real pain points, celebrating visible wins, and acknowledging change fatigue and emotional labor. Burnout is framed as occurring when people are asked to change without support, clarity, or voice.<br /><br />The presenters also highlight “data storytelling” as a driver of action—data must be made relevant, visual, and tied to patient impact and organizational values. Sustaining change requires both systems (daily huddles, visual management, workflow/EHR integration, dashboards, performance review metrics) and culture (recognition, leader role-modeling, onboarding/training, psychological safety, shared high-reliability language).<br /><br />Actionable practices include running a change readiness pulse check, piloting a change framework (Kotter, Lewin, Diffusion of Innovation), using a “7x7” communication plan, conducting stakeholder mapping with gemba walks, and building sustainment mechanisms with clear ownership. The session closes by pointing to NAHQ micro-credentials in performance and process improvement.

Keywords

healthcare change management

driving change learning lab

PDSA cycle

root cause analysis DMAIC

Lean Six Sigma

ADKAR model

change readiness assessment

frontline engagement and middle managers

data storytelling for improvement

sustaining change high reliability culture