Stakeholder Scenario

Goal: To convince a group of people to use a specific, new type of antibiotic for patients pre-operatively in order to decrease surgical wound infections.

Scenario: You are a healthcare administrator that is trying to introduce a change in practice to a group of stakeholders. Your goal is to help them understand the rationale and need for the change, and to get a sense of the areas of resistance to the change. The change under discussion is to implement a new antibiotic to be given one hour before surgery starts as a way of reducing post-op wound infections. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Studies (CMS) have indicated that timely pre-op application of specific antibiotics is becoming a requirement and will be a publicly reported indicator on the CMS Web site for your hospital. Thus, institution of this new procedure is something you really need to pull off.

As the administrator in this scenario, you will hear the initial responses of each of the stakeholders. You will then be presented with several options for your response. Select the option you think is most effective.