Organizational Culture and Readiness Assessment. Literature Review

Evidence-Based Practice Proposal
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Institutional Affiliation
Evidence-Based Practice Proposal
Part A: Organizational Culture and Readiness Assessment
The readiness of an organization for evidence-based practice (EBP) can be assessed by exploring its organizational culture. At Houston Methodist Willowbrook Hospital, the key areas of assessment for the proposed change include nursing leadership, staff’s beliefs, and awareness levels, and continuous improvement. The tool of choice for assessing the organization’s readiness is Organizational Readiness to Change Assessment (ORCA) (National Collaborating Centre for Methods and Tools, 2019). The ORCA instrument is primarily concerned with the amount of evidence for the suggested change, the context in which the change will be implemented, and organizational capacity to facilitate the change.
After using the survey tool, it was found that the nursing leadership at Houston Methodist Willowbrook Hospital sometimes communicates the clinical importance of EBP to the OR and SICU staff. Although nurse leaders sometimes involve the staff in discussions on EBP’s role in the future of the organization, such engagements are not regular. In order to address these areas of weakness, it is critical for the nursing leaders to hold frequent teaching sessions on EBP as a way of promoting a shared vision and understanding of the desired outcomes. According to Wagner et al (2016), staff education is important for enhancing compliance with plume management in the OR. When educational sessions were implemented, compliance levels increased by 14.6% (Wagner et al., 2016).
Nevertheless, the staff is sufficiently informed and confident about the value of EBP in improving patient outcomes. For example, survey questionnaires indicated a mean of 90.11 (SD=10.99) in EBP beliefs. Concerning the concept of continuous improvement as part of the readiness assessment, the ORCA tool confirmed that the OR and SICU staff do their level best to review patient progress and adjust plans of service delivery to achieve positive change. However, their efforts are impeded by the lack of overall appreciation of the role of an efficient smoke evacuation system. Since the staff lacks strong evidence to this effect, there are gaps in compliance and adherence to the recommended standards of surgical plumes evacuation.
Part B
Problem Statement and Literature Review
At Houston Methodist Willowbrook Hospital, there is a general consensus among the various specialists in the OR (general surgeons, critical care surgeons, perioperative nurses, anesthesiologists, colorectal surgeons, and urologists) that modernized surgical plume evacuation technology is a necessity for the optimal safety of the OR staff and patients. Moreover, there are a good number of scholarly studies and publications that indicate the potential adverse health effects of prolonged exposure to surgical smoke.
For example, Katoch and Mysore (2019) found that the population that has the highest risk of respiratory problems, airborne infections, and irritation of the eyes within the hospital settings are the members of the OR staff. The researchers attributed this risk to the absence of proper smoke evacuation equipment, inc...