Gaining Leadership Support and Building the Team:

The champion whose ideas and enthusiasm sparks a project like this might work at any level within an organization. Most often, there’s room to “manage up” in the organization and being able to do so is key to gaining commitments for the human and financial resources needed to launch, maintain, and grow the project. When planning and launching the project, it’s particularly important to get leadership’s help in establishing a committed implementation team(s) with representatives from all key areas within the organization.

Below are specific steps to consider:

• Develop a “why are we doing this” statement which emphasizes “what’s in it” for a specific practice site, division, and/or the entire organization.
• Tailor the “why” to specific audiences as compelling reasons for the project may differ with audiences at different levels within the organization and with different responsibilities.
• Determine measures of success which align with “why.”
• Identify project advocate on senior leadership team.
• Enlist support of other key thought leaders within the organization, both clinical and administrative.
• Select clinical and administrative champion(s), as having both is important to sustain implementation activities.
• Convene implementation team that consists of representatives from different groups who will be involved in the logistics of decision aid delivery such as physicians, schedulers, and medical assistants. If there is a significant Information Technology component, then recruiting someone from Information Technology early is also critical.
• Maintain support and continue to nurture the relationships over time through periodic updates and feedback on progress.

Investing in a Decision Aid Vendor:

• It is important to talk with your leadership team to discuss funding to support decision aids in your clinic.
• Ensure that all clinical staff who will be utilizing the decision aids are part of the conversation to identify the decision aid that fits the need of your practice.
• There are many varieties of decision aids differing in structure, amount type of information presented, and cost. Meeting with several vendors to determine what best fits your needs and budget is extremely helpful.

Resources:

Click on the links below to visit these resources:

Leadership Presentation: This short PowerPoint presentation emphasizes why decision aids are important and how they may help to advance organizational priorities.

Leading Change — Why Transformation Efforts Fail: This short article by John Kotter (1995) identifies 8 common errors that have derailed transformation efforts big and small. Some key takeaways are the ability to communicate a strong vision and to anchor changes into the institutional culture.

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