MOD 3, CT 2 - HCM410 - Michelle Miguel

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Colorado State University, Global Campus *

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410

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Health Science

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Jan 9, 2024

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docx

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6

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1 Force Field Analysis Michelle C. Miguel Colorado State University – Global Campus HCM410: Healthcare Operations Management Todd Kane April 4, 2021
2 Force Field Analysis A common issue in the emergency department (ED) has always been the amount of time a patient is waiting until they are seen for their situation. The ED is a popular place for many individuals to go to seek immediate care, but long wait times often prevent that and there are a lot of other patients waiting to be seen. About 130 million people are seen in the ED annually, with about 43.5% of them being seen in less than 15 minutes (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021). According to Savva & Tezcan (2019), research shows that the average wait time for a patient to be taken to a room was over an hour and a half, taking over two hours before they are discharged. Patients who have been waiting for too long may leave without being seen and cost the hospital money because they may not return to that location for care. Instead, they will go to the competition. To reduce wait times, those in charge of the ED need to identify the underlying issues that are causing the long wait. This may be difficult since people arrive at varying times of the day and for different, specific reasons that may need more special and quicker attention. Using force field analysis would help identify issues in the ED wait times in order to develop ways on how to improve on it. What is Force Field Analysis? Force field analysis is a tool used for problem solving and decision making. McLaughlin & Olson (2017) define it as “a technique for evaluating all of the various forces for and against a proposed change” (p. 120). In force field analysis, there are driving forces and restraining forces. Driving forces are those that help achieve the changes, while restraining forces work against them (McLaughlin & Olson, 2017). Typically, there are relative scores for each of these categories that help determine how to strengthen driving forces or weaken restraining forces,
3 depending on which score is higher. If the restraining forces are higher, changes may fail. The disadvantage of having the scores is that it is subjective. A force may not be as strong or weak as other individuals or organizations may think of it. With this background knowledge in mind, there are steps taken to carry out a force field analysis. The Mind Tools Content Team (n.d.) lists the following steps: 1) describe your plan or proposal for change, 2) identify driving forces, 3) identify restraining forces, 4) assign scores to each force (use a scale from one to five, with one being weak and five being strong), and 5) analyze and apply changes. Step five is making a decision on whether or not the organization wants to move forward with the changes. ED Force Field Analysis The following points show an example of the first three steps of the specific analysis being discussed (ED wait times) and includes a score next to each individual force (step four): 1. Plan/Change: to reduce emergency department wait time 2. Driving forces (13): o Patients complain about long wait times (4) o Decrease in revenue/profits (4) o Using predicted wait time on screens (2) o Triage nurses prioritize patients (3) 3. Restraining forces (10): o Staff availability (4) o Room/equipment availability (3) o Overcrowded waiting area (3) Looking at this force field analysis, a hospital experiencing long ED wait times should
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