Obstacles to Change and Roles of a Multidisciplinary Team - Essay Example

"Obstacles to Change and Roles of a Multidisciplinary Team" is a great example of a paper on the health system.
Organizational change is an inevitable occurrence in an organization due to the dynamic business environment organizations are operating in the global era. There are however high instances where the members in a hospital environment, especially employees are resistant to the change. This leads to the need of creating a multidisciplinary team to check and make amends and interventions that result in the acceptance of the change. This study looks at the obstacles that are faced by a hospital in implementing change as well as the roles and reasons behind these roles that are played by a multidisciplinary team.     

The obstacles that a hospital can face in implementing change include complacency here the members of the organization are satisfied with the status quo and belief that everything is at its best (Mizrahi, 2001). This affects the change in terms of lack of agency to get the change rolling in the organization due to the belief that the change will affect the individuals negatively since it is what they are not used to in the organization. The other challenge is the lack of power by the implementing team where all the research has been done and presented due to minimal support from the management, implementation of the proposed change becomes a hindrance. Lack of vision entails not having a clear road map for the change being sought for affecting the ability of other members of the organization to support the change leading to change failure (Mizrahi, 2001).

Failure to communicate the change effectively is another obstacle in introducing changes in an organization where a clear understanding of the benefits, needs, challenges, and requirements of the members of the organization. Declaring victory as soon as the change is implemented entails celebration before the true benefits of the change are harnessed by the organization. Change implementers have to ensure that the changes are ingrained in the organization and have been a culture in the organization for them to celebrate the success of the change.

A multidisciplinary team consists of psychiatrists, clinical nurses, psychologists, occupational therapists, social workers, counselors, care workers, among other professionals from different disciplines, and is involved in the provision of primary care in a hospital environment (Housley, 2003). The roles of a multidisciplinary team include:

Perform assessments, prescribe medication, provide talking therapies, provision specialized talking therapies, performance of in-depth assessment o the patients, monitor behavior changes, and response to treatment, and assess patient difficulties. Other roles include administering of medication, providing support, and communicating with the family, providing advice to families in relation to finance, housing, and support, formulation of the rehabilitation plan, and skills assessments (Rowland & Rowland, 1997).

The main reasons for the functions performed by a multidisciplinary team in a hospital are to improve the quality, equity, and consistency of rehabilitation services offered in a hospital environment. This is done through making use of different skills and expertise offered by the members of the different disciplines of the multidisciplinary team for better service delivery in an organized manner. Another reason is that it results in consistent communication with the family, patient, and the multidisciplinary team in the course of rehabilitation. The function played by a multidisciplinary team makes use of varied skills and expertise resulting in better service delivery and satisfaction.