Planning and Implementing Change in Healthcare: Creating a Mentoring Program

One of the most common problems on all nursing units is the tendency of nurses to “eat their young,” or to be highly critical of younger and less experienced nurses. Given the need to recruit and retain new nurses to address the deficit of retiring nurses and to ensure that currently employed nurses are not overburdened and overworked, addressing this issue is particularly pressing. The proposed change is to institute a mentoring program to facilitate dialogue between new hires and existing staff. This will increase goodwill, improve training and communication, and reduce errors, thus hopefully reducing the phenomenon of nurses “eating their young.”

Proposed Change

To remedy the problem, it is necessary to address the root cause or phenomenon. “In most cases, nurse bullying is the result of ineffective communication and coping skills in a high stakes environment,” (Katz, 2014, par. 8). According to the Academy of Medical Surgery Nurses (AMSN) (2012), mentoring has found to be an extremely effective way of creating workplace cohesion and sharing skills between different generations of nurses. “Mentoring is a reciprocal and collaborative learning relationship between two, sometimes more, individuals with mutual goals and shared accountability for the outcomes and success of the relationship” (“Introduction to Mentoring,” 2012, par. 1).

Instituting such a program within the hospital will communicate the unacceptable nature of workplace bullying and underline the need to support new nurses being integrated into the hospital. One of critical foundations at the heart of mentoring according to the AMSN (2012) is that of honoring the need to support the nurse’s progress from novice to expert; mentoring allows nurses to slowly gain in expertise under supervision so they can accumulate the types of lived experiences that can gradually make responding to patient needs seem...

This prevents some of the frustration that older nurses experience dealing with younger nurses who may have textbook learning but little life experience. Mentoring is based upon adult learning, which ensures that the adult learner has control over her experience and can tailor the mentoring to practical, hands-on experiences that will be useful in later practice.
Alignment with Mission, Vision, and Values

Ultimately, the mission of every healthcare institution is to assist patients and promote health. But this also means showing respect for employees. Without a culture of respect for nurses and a reasonable foundation for continuing education, patient care will suffer. A workplace where bullying takes place is not a healthy place for either nurses or patients. That is why it is so vital to create a mentoring program that is simultaneously effective and engaging. Mentoring programs are also aligned with the teaching vision of the hospital, to both educate patients and nurses. It is aligned with the values of health promotion, sharing with others, and teamwork to ensure that high-quality healthcare is delivered to all patients.

Change Model: Outlining the Steps

Many models of organizational change currently exist. But virtually all of them are fundamentally based on the Lewin Change Model, which suggests that change is a process of unfreezing, change, and refreezing. The Lewin Model is effective in its simplicity and the fact that it underlines the need first and foremost to get powerful organizational actors on board with the change, before the change can be embarked upon. “To prepare the organization successfully, you need to start at its core – you need to challenge the beliefs, values, attitudes, and behaviors that currently define it” (“Lewin’s Change Model,” 2017, par.9). With no motivation and will among nurses to change, sabotage is likely through an unwillingness to participate, bad-mouthing the change, or a refusal to support…