Change Model

Change and learning are things which can come hard for many people. The change puts us out of our comfort zones and learning something new means we have to understand and comprehend new concepts for ourselves. Trying to implement change or learning can take a long time and requires active participation from the person trying to implement these things in their life. A good way to understand change and how it works is through looking at Kurt Lewin's theory of change. This theory involves three different pieces; unfreezing, change, and refreezing. The first step of change is recognizing that there is something that needs to be changed. In this scenario, we can look at the idea of trying to implement and execute learning and change to a group of older doctors who are learning a new computer system to use for charting and entering orders. 





The first step of change happens when you recognize that there is a need for a change. In Lewin's theory, this begins the process of unfreezing. During the unfreezing stage, it is important for doctors to understand the purpose of the change. The nursing informaticist should emphasize how using a computerized physician order entry will provide a quicker method of order writing, will provide easier access to orders for the nursing staff, and can help with patient care as orders can be input in a timely manner without delay of care. 

The second step of change is the actual part of the change. In this phase, the nursing informaticist will educate the doctors on how to work within the computer system to maximize the amount of work they will be doing within the system. The informaticist will also educate them on how to connect information on labs to patient info and how to consolidate medication info while adding safeguards to promote patient safety. The nursing informaticist should also work with the doctors as they work within the system and teach them the ins and outs of the program so that they can use it when the informaticist is gone. 

The final phase of change is the refreezing phase. In this phase, the actual change is set in place and is finalized. The doctors in this portion of change should have learned enough of the program to be able to use it effectively. They should also be able to implement this learning and this change into their everyday practice so that it becomes a habit. This change should effectively help their practice, improve patient care, and cut down on the time they spend in documentation or in only looking up labs.