Launching and Leading Change Initiatives in Health Care Organizations: Managing Successful Projects

Introduction: The Need for Change

As anyone who works in and around health care knows, it is an unusual environment. It is both a mission and an industry. It is a high-tech scientific enterprise and a high-touch human service. The overarching objective is simple enough, albeit often beyond our grasp: to help people recover from illnesses and injuries and stay healthy. But the subordinate goals are numerous and often in conflict. Health care organizations try to deliver care that is consistent with the best scientific evidence and that patients and their families also find helpful and comforting. They try to do so in a businesslike and cost-effective manner, so that their revenues exceed their expenses. (No margin, no mission, as the common phrase ...