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Needs Assessment Paper

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Needs Assessment Paper

Abstract

This paper assesses the necessity for change in Franciscan Health Olympia Fields' visitation

policy. The hospital's present visitation policy is characterized as stringent and rigid.

Unfortunately, it negatively impacts patients, their families, and healthcare professionals. The

policy causes isolation, uncertainity, anxiety, worry, depression, agitation, aggressiveness,

and dissatisfaction among patients and their families. This leads to poor patient outcomes.

Furthermore, it increases the workload of healthcare providers. As a result, the policy should

be reassessed and altered to be more flexible, accommodating, and patient-centered. This

would enhance patient outcomes, satisfaction, and psychological and emotional support.

Nonetheless, organizational change has always proved difficult. Consequently, I propose the

transformational leadership theory to guide change in the hospital's visitation policy. This

theory incorporates leadership skills that are essential to spearheading change: idealized

influence, inspirational motivation, individualized consideration, and intellectual stimulation.

The paper ends by stressing the importance of these skills in driving organizational change.

Introduction

Health policies are aimed at guaranteeing the safety, comfort, privacy, and satisfaction

of patients and their families. Nevertheless, some policies negatively affect patients and

should be reassessed. The visitation policy in Franciscan Health Olympia Fields is one such

policy. This policy is rigid and limits visitation hours and the number of people who can visit

a patient at a time. Moreover, visitors must follow stringent rules. Unfortunately, the policy is

inconsistent with current evidence-based practice. Hugelius et al. (2021) discovered that

restrictive visitation policies prevented families from participating in patients' care. This

caused patients to feel lonely, depressed, agitated, aggressive, and dissatisfied, leading to
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poor health outcomes. Furthermore, family members experienced uncertainty, anxiety, and

worry.

Undoubtedly, Franciscan Health Olympia Fields' visitation policy should be changed

to be more flexible, accommodating, and patient-centered. This will enable it to address the

ever-evolving nature of patients' needs. To this end, this paper describes the current state of

the hospital's visitation policy, its desired state, strategies I would wish to use to close the

gap, and potential leadership skills I will require to drive change and close the gap.

Current State

Franciscan Health Olympia Fields' present visitation policy is characterized as strict

and rigid. Visiting hours for most units are 8:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Nevertheless, the hospital can

further constrain visiting hours in some cases if it feels it is in the best interest of patients to

allow them to heal. Moreover, patients can only have two visitors in their room and two in

the waiting room at a time. Furthermore, visitors to adult units must be 12 and above years,

while visitors to the Family Birth Center who are below the age of 18 are constrained only to

the siblings of the newborn. Finally, visitors are required to observe a "Quiet Hour" from

12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. in patient units to help promote a better healing environment for

patients (Franciscan Health Alliance, 2023).

This visitation policy negatively affects patients, families, and healthcare providers in

several ways. First, the policy constrains patients' access to their loved ones during critical

moments of care. As a result, patients are more likely to feel lonely, depressed, agitated,

aggressive, and dissatisfied. This results in poor health results. According to Silvera et al.

(2021), strict visitation policies are associated with reduced daily activities, lower nutrition

intake, and increased physical pain, symptoms, and fall rates.

Secondly, Franciscan Health Olympia Fields' restrictive visitation policy causes

family members to experience sadness, anxiety, worries, and a need for more updates and
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information regarding patients' statuses. They are more likely to be morally concerned about

not adequately supporting and protecting their loved ones during difficult times (Hugelius et

al. 2021). This is because the policy limits their capacity to participate in patient care actively

and receive patient education. It is worth noting that while Franciscan Health Olympia Fields'

visitation hours may seem long, many families are normally busy with work or school during

these hours. As a result, they find it difficult to visit patients.

Finally, the hospital's restrictive visitation policy places more burden on healthcare

providers. Families' need for more updates and information regarding patients' statuses

compels providers to regularly and comprehensively communicate with them to establish

trust. This communication could be simplified by families visiting the hospital at will.

Additionally, the restrictive visitation policy forces professionals to offer more social and

emotional support to both patients and their families (Moss et al. 2019). It also increases

ethical dilemmas in balancing patient safety and the need for families and friends to visit

patients because Franciscan Health Olympia Fields' providers have the discretion to permit or

decline visiting in some cases.

Desired State

Franciscan Health Olympia Fields' visitation policy should be reviewed and altered to

be more flexible, accommodating, and patient-centered. First, the hospital should prolong its

visitation hours to 24 hours to match the contemporary 24-hour working economy. This

would enable families that are usually busy during the day to visit their loved ones at night.

Secondly, Franciscan Health Olympia Fields should make the number of visitors seeing a

patient flexible, based on the patient's needs (Akbari et al. 2020). For instance, the hospital

could allow more visitors for patients with complex diseases or those needing emotional

support and set a logical limit to prevent overcrowding at a time.

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Finally, Franciscan Health Olympia Fields should allow patients to choose who can

visit them (Ning & Cope, 2020). This is because different patients have different support

systems. Consequently, the hospital should abolish the age restrictions on the adult and

maternity units. Notably, Franciscan Health Olympia Fields' management should include

providers, patients, and their families in implementing these changes to obtain their support.

The changes above are required to enhance patient outcomes, satisfaction, and

psychological and emotional support. First, modifying the visitation policy would foster

patient-centered care by improving the interactions between professionals, patients, and their

families. As a result, patient results would improve. Mackie et al. (2019) assert that patients

receiving constant support from their friends and families are likelier to experience less

anxiety, quicker recovery, and a reduced danger of complications.

Secondly, patient satisfaction is a crucial indicator for assessing healthcare service

quality. Stringent visitation policies may impair patient satisfaction scores. Raphael et al.

(2021) found that hospitals with open visitation hours tend to enjoy greater patient

satisfaction levels. Therefore, numerous patients seek out these hospitals.

Finally, patients often experience isolation and trauma during hospitalization.

Allowing them to enjoy the emotional support of their families and friends may diminish

feelings of loneliness and depression. Marmo & Milner (2023) state that unrestrictive

visitation policies enhance patients' psychological well-being. Consequently, these patients

experience better results.

On the flip side, the cost of implementing these changes is insignificant. Making the

number of visitors seeing a patient flexible and abolishing the age restrictions on the adult

and maternity units actually cost nothing. On the other hand, prolonging the hospital's

visitation hours to 24 hours would necessitate increased labor costs, as staff should always be
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present during visits. Nonetheless, the benefits of implementing the changes outweigh its

costs.

Leadership Skills

Organizational change regularly proves challenging due to a lack of consistency,

leadership support, strategic direction, and communication. Furthermore, employees typically

oppose it because of disrupted habits, personality, perceived loss of power, fear of failure,

and uncertainty. I believe the transformational leadership theory can guide change in

Franciscan Health Olympia Fields' visitation policy. The elements of this theory outline the

leadership skills I have to spearhead change. Transformational leadership is a leadership style

that stimulates change in people and social systems (Robbins & Davidhizar, 2020). Ideally,

this leadership approach generates a positive and valuable change in followers with the final

objective of developing them into leaders. Transformational leadership improves followers'

morale, motivation, and performance via different mechanisms: idealized influence,

inspirational motivation, individualized consideration, and intellectual stimulation.

First, idealized influence involves leaders serving as perfect role models for followers;

they "walk the talk" and are adored for it. Transformational leaders embody the traits they

desire in their followers. As a result, followers view the leader as an example to copy.

Followers normally find it easy to trust and believe transformational leaders because of their

charisma (Robbins & Davidhizar, 2020). Demonstrating a charismatic personality encourages

followers to imitate their leader more.

Secondly, inspirational motivation relates to transformational leaders' capacity to

motivate and inspire followers by having a vision and articulating it. Idealized influence and

inspirational motivation comprise the transformational leader's productivity.

Transformational leaders can inspire followers effortlessly using their image and simple and

easy-to-comprehend words (Robbins & Davidhizar, 2020). These are individuals who inspire
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their firms, political parties or candidates, or even their whole nation using their vision since

time immemorial.

Moreover, individualized consideration refers to transformational leaders' ability to

illustrate real concern for their followers' feelings and requirements and assist them in self-

actualization (Robbins & Davidhizar, 2020). This individual attention to every follower helps

develop trust among the firm's members and their leaders. It also helps transformational

leaders identify group members' issues and focus on training and developing them. This is a

crucial aspect, as it improves transformational leaders' buy-in and facilitates dependability

and collaboration that speeds up decision-making.

Finally, intellectual stimulation involves leaders challenging followers to be creative

and innovative to question the status quo. Although many individuals believe that

transformational leaders are "soft," the reality is that they continuously push followers to

greater performance levels. They question their followers' presumptions and foster creativity

(Robbins & Davidhizar, 2020). It is up to followers to determine whether their creativity is

inherent or learned.

Conclusion

Franciscan Health Olympia Fields' rigid and restrictive visitation policy should be

reviewed and modified to be more flexible, accommodating, and patient-centered. The

significance of nursing leadership skills in this transformation cannot be understated.

According to the transformational leadership theory, these skills help leaders enhance

followers' morale, motivation, and performance toward change. They include idealized

influence, inspirational motivation, individualized consideration, and intellectual stimulation.

Nursing leaders have a distinct opportunity to champion policy change in Franciscan Health

Olympia visitation policy. This will improve patient satisfaction, emotional and

psychological well-being, and outcomes.

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References

Akbari, R., Karimi Moonaghi, H., Mazloum, S. R., & Bagheri Moghaddam, A. (2020).

Implementation of a flexible visiting policy in intensive care unit: A randomized

clinical trial. Nursing in Critical Care, 25(4), 221-228.

Franciscan Health Alliance. (2023, April 12). VISITOR GUIDELINES - FRANCISCAN

HEALTH OLYMPIA FIELDS. Franciscan Health.

https://www.franciscanhealth.org/patient-resources/visitor-guidelines/franciscan-

health-olympia-fields#:~:text=Visiting%20is%20restricted%20to%20two,from

%208%3A30AM%20to%208PM.

Hugelius, K., Harada, N., & Marutani, M. (2021). Consequences of visiting restrictions

during the COVID‐19 pandemic: An integrative review. International journal of

nursing studies, 121, 104000.

Mackie, B. R., Mitchell, M., & Marshall, A. P. (2019). Patient and family members'

perceptions of family participation in care on acute care wards. Scandinavian journal

of caring sciences, 33(2), 359-370.

Marmo, S., & Milner, K. A. (2023). From open to closed: COVID-19 restrictions on

previously unrestricted visitation policies in adult intensive care units. American

Journal of Critical Care, 32(1), 31-41.

Moss, S. J., Krewulak, K. D., Stelfox, H. T., Ahmed, S. B., Anglin, M. C., Bagshaw, S. M., ...

& Fiest, K. M. (2021). Restricted visitation policies in acute care settings during the

COVID-19 pandemic: a scoping review. Critical Care, 25(1), 1-12.

Ning, J., & Cope, V. (2020). Open visiting in adult intensive care units–a structured literature

review. Intensive and Critical Care Nursing, 56, 102763.

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Raphael, J. L., Kessel, W., & Patel, M. (2021). Unintended consequences of restrictive

visitation policies during the COVID-19 pandemic: implications for hospitalized

children. Pediatric Research, 89(6), 1333-1335.

Robbins, B., & Davidhizar, R. (2020). Transformational leadership in health care today. The

Health Care Manager, 39(3), 117-121.

Silvera, G. A., Wolf PhD, J. A., Stanowski, A., & Studer, Q. (2021). The influence of

COVID-19 visitation restrictions on patient experience and safety outcomes: a critical

role for subjective advocates. Patient Experience Journal, 8(1), 30-39.