Assessing healthy start staff perceptions of organizational readiness in the Interconception Care Learning Community (ICC LC) quality improvement project

Background: The Interconception Care Learning Community (ICC LC) was a three-year quality improvement project of Healthy Start grantees, funded by the Division of Healthy Start and Perinatal Services of the Maternal and Child Health Bureau from 2008-2011.This presentation will discuss our findings from a pre- and post-assessment of grantees' readiness for implementing and sustaining change in their organizations. Methods: Before and after implementation of their quality improvement projects, Healthy Start project directors and key staff completed the Organizational Change Recipients' Beliefs Scale, a questionnaire developed by Armenakis et al. (2007) to assess five categories of beliefs that are related to an individual's perception of organizational readiness for change. Of those who participated, project directors from 55 grantees and staff from 44 grantees completed both pre- and post-test questionnaires. Results: Project directors and staff experienced significant increases in their perceived support from leadership and other peers, with both seeing positive shifts for the questionnaire item, “Most of my respected peers embrace the proposed organizational change.” Staff experienced the greatest gain (a 47.6% change) in the perception that “[t]he change that we are implementing is correct for our situation.” Together, these findings reflected substantial increases over time in grantees' perceptions that the Healthy Start community was committed to change. Conclusion: Studies of large scale improvement demonstrate that organizational readiness is a key factor in effectively improving organizational processes and services. The findings from this study can be used by community health staff as they plan, implement, and assess organizational change.