Scenario

You are the Health Information Management (HIM) Director at Happy Patient Healthcare. It has been announced that there will be a merger between your organization and Sunny Day Hospital that will occur over the next six months. Both organizations have their own Health Information Management Department. After the merger, these departments will be centralized at Happy Patient Healthcare, as this is the bigger organization. You have been notified that since you are the most experienced leader, you will continue to be the director of the newly merged HIM department. Both HIM departments perform the same functions of coding, CDI, release of information, chart deficiency, document imaging, and patient identity. However, they have different cultures. Below are some of the differences between the two organizations prior to the merger:

• Happy Patient Healthcare has productivity standards that employees are expected to meet, but Sunny Day Hospital does not track the productivity of any of its staff.
• Happy Patient Healthcare has regular Continuing Education offered to its staff as well as daily huddles, while Sunny Day Hospital has weekly department meetings but no continuing education.
• Happy Patient Healthcare has different levels of coders at the beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels. In contrast, Sunny Day Hospital only has one coder level, and those coders do all of the different types of coding.
• Happy Patient Healthcare has a casual dress code and work environment, while Sunny Day Hospital is more formal in its dress code.

The two departments will be merging under your leadership over the next six months. Eventually, there may need to be layoffs. However, it is too difficult to tell at this time because you do not have any data to analyze as far as how much work is done at Sunny Day Hospital. All of the staff are extremely anxious about this merger, especially the Sunny Day Hospital staff, as they are the smaller organization being merged into the larger one, and you are a new unknown leader to them.

Instructions

In a Word document, write a Change Management Plan to address this merger with the newly formed staff. Be sure to address the following:

• Include a timeline in your plan.
• What change management concepts will you use?
• What will you discuss with the management team vs. the staff?
• Address what you see as issues or concerns that will need to be resolved for a successful merger and how the change management concepts you have chosen will address these.
• Include an introductory speech that you will make to the Sunny Day Hospital staff when you are introduced to them at a Meet-and-Greet for the first time.