Navigating Resistance and Adaptation in Health Care: How Pediatricians Can Balance Transformation and Children's Needs

Resistance to change is an emotional and behavioral reaction people often exhibit when faced with changes or innovations in their work or personal contexts.1 This resistance can take various forms. It may manifest as passive opposition, refusal to implement new practices, or lack of enthusiasm for adopting new processes and technologies and can even escalate into outright sabotaging behaviors.2 Resistance to change is not necessarily irrational or negative; rather, such inertia is a natural response to perceived uncertainty or a threat to personal or organizational well-being and affecting daily life.2,3 Therefore, effectively managing resistance to change, by adopting and effectively implementing new practices or technologies, is crucial to ensure the success that innovation can bring both to personal daily life and the work environment, and as a positive outcome, to those who benefit from the related professional activities.3,4 In both public and private health care, rapidly evolving regulatory requirements, continuous technological innovations including digital transformation, and continuously emerging knowledge create a constantly changing system.5 In this dynamic environment, the agility of a health care organization to adapt and make the most of change is essential for its survival.5 However, this presents challenges for individual health care professionals and the institutions with which they work, making it difficult to engage with, understand the potential of, and optimally utilizes the solutions offered by change.4 The challenges posed by change in health care, whether in research, clinical care, or patient management are highly complex, and it is estimated that more than half of organizational change projects fail.6 Even the most experienced organizers are vulnerable to this high failure rate.6 This commentary, authored by members of the Social Pediatrics working group of the European Pediatric Association, Union of National Pediatric Societies and Associations, highlights the importance for pediatricians to reconcile their resistance to change with the health needs of children. The aim is to increase pediatricians' awareness that the organization and administration of health care are more likely to succeed if they are prepared to embrace change, feel ready for it, recognize its value, and possibly actively influence the change.7 Understanding that this could, in turn, have a significant positive impact on their work in both public and private health care institutions, as well as in their daily practice, increases their willingness to embrace and implement new management and operational strategies that will truly benefit their patients