Health Care Profession Conflict Resolution Essay
Health Care Profession Conflict Resolution Essay
Nurses encounter conflict daily, and it occurs not only in every workplace but in everyday interaction and even relationship and may due to differences in opinions. Some conflict can be dealt with easier than some and its usually due to the understanding of the person involve roles and responsibilities. Within the health care profession conflicts should not be avoided and should be dealt with in a timely manner nonetheless as healthcare professional we must stay in accordance, so the situation does not escalate out of control, when conflicts arise it can occur between doctors, nurses, supportive staff, patients, and even among other unit, floor, facilities. I worked in the nursing home, the most recent conflicts in our facility are shortages of staff and when this happen it leads to increased workloads and double shifts for the staff. One situation I can related to, is the ongoing bickering between day shift and night shift. Such as, pressure dressing changes per the facility, policy and physicians order, dressings changes must be done in a timely manner and a daily basis to prevent infections and quality patient care. But, as per day shift staff, their shifts are always busy with rounds, consultations, discharging, sending patients to MRI, to dialysis and PT, which make the nurses sometime unable to complete all these tasks.Health Care Profession Conflict Resolution Essay. Thus, the task should be done by the night shift nurses which the urgency matters are less. But according to night shift nurses, they also have their share of tasks such as dealing with patients who are more confused at night and highly need more attention. These are common conflicts that occur in many facilities not only the nursing profession sometimes generated negative reaction and feeling toward each other, It can also be stressful for the staff and likely the patient will suffer in other words, patient quality of care will be compromise when these handoffs of tasks occur, due to overwork.
Continuous disputes in the work place can affect the staff can be physically and mentally drain due to continuous disputes in the This can have an impact on the staff’s attitude regarding the work environment an increase turnover and callout rates.
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The three different types of conflict for healthcare professions are individual, interpersonal, and intergroup/ organization. Effective resolution of conflict requires an understanding of the cause of the conflict. However, some conflicts may have more than one cause. Individual conflict occurs when there is a misunderstanding among staff regarding one or more of their role expectations. There are some common and problematic type of conflict that experienced in the workplace that involved interpersonal conflicts”. Interpersonal conflicts sometimes occur due to team differences in opinions, personalities or even different personalities. Intergroups occurs between when groups or teams which may lack the understanding of the purpose of teams, and there is no leadership within a team to provide the best possible patient care, healthcare professions need to learn how to deal with conflicts and come to a resolution effective collaboration and communication should be used to tackle the issue at hand. There are many ongoing conflicts in my facility. Some of the occurring issues occurs between nurses, CNA, day shift and night shift. Individual conflict can increase the level of stress for other members of the team where there is a miscommunication of roles and is seen a lot in the work place. Health Care Profession Conflict Resolution Essay.
The stages of conflicts are divided into four stages. According to Finkelman (2016), Latent conflict stage is the first stage in the development of conflict; in this people sometime not aware that they are in conflict. In this stage, the conflict has not actually occurred, it’s an anticipation of conflicts, the conditions are present that are about to set the stage for conflict to happen.
Next is the perceived conflict Stage this is when the everyone involved in the conflict is fully aware that there is conflict. Such as the nurses on the night shift that noticed the dressing changes task is being handed off frequently instead of the day shift completing the task. Within the observation stage the nurse is aware and has become more cautious of the situation even though they haven’t said anything. Felt conflict begins to occur when individuals begin to have feelings about the conflict such as anger or anxiety, if the conflict progresses to this stage the original conflict must be resolved, and the personal feelings and emotions should be resolved as well. Development of emotions regarding the conflict, such as anger and stress, this is the third stage, this stage can often lead to avoidance. At this point the nurse overwhelm and frustrated with all the dressing change that has been push over to the night shift.
The last stage is Manifest, in this stage the conflict is observable to other members of the team. staff realize there is an issue, but the issues has been ignored. “This conflict can either be constructive or destructive.” Verbal exchanges constantly occur between staff about the issue at my facility, this behavior can be got positive response or a negative response. The negative response aspects are avoidance and negative comments. A positive response is that the problem maybe solves and unity among team members. This is when management must get involve and find a solution to the problem. Within this stage the goal is personnel growth from a conflict.
Nurses have been socialized to avoid conflict. I have seen many nurses who have ended up quitting their jobs instead of trying to resolve conflicts that happened between them and another coworker. Even though avoidance seems like a way out of a complicated situation, it will not solve the conflict. Avoidance should not be used as a conflict management strategy because it will produce unsuccessful results and will only postponed the problem. Second stage helps to focus on the current situation it also discusses behavior that is at present, third stage is telling someone how you feel keep the conversation open rather than focusing it only on the other person. Health Care Profession Conflict Resolution Essay. With these strategies it can help promote open discussion and allow other perspectives to be explored. Both shift of nurses can come together in a meeting and voice their opinions and wishes. Staff involved should be able to identify what the conflict and deal with it accordingly.
Management has the responsibility to create safe environments that protects patients and nurses from inappropriate assignment activities or tasks that will cause conflicts to staff or harm to the patients ( ANA). With unsafe task a negative outcome can be the resulted such as poor patient outcomes If the pressure ulcer dressing is not change accordingly, and staff delayed infection can occur. With open communication and by identifying the goals and objectives from both parties involved the nurse manager can find a solution and what’s best to resolve the conflicts before it escalate. New avenues can be explored, and unexpected solutions can occur. Whatever solution the nurse manager implemented will determines how successful each shift will be. During discussion with the nurse leader the dressing changes should be brought up in the meetings to see what can be done. The nurse leader should conduct the meeting without been biased, listening to all views equally without been judgmental. Managers are expected to follow up. When the following meeting occurs, the focus should be on previous conflicts and whether it has been resolved completely.
Conclusion
Whenever handling a conflict each person should identify how each can come to an agreement and collaborated to come to a solution so the tension in the perceive stage can be avoided can help prevent the conflict from getting out of control. With effective communication conflicts can be identified and addressed appropriately that is the only way to resolve conflict. A conflict cannot be resolve without knowledge of what the conflict is. Avoiding a conflict is not ideal for a therapeutic relationship and if left unsolved can eventually cause a negative response. These patients in this scenario can be affected due to differences of opinions and delay in treatments. As a nurse I have work both shifts, each shift has its own challenges. Whatever the agreement is will be determined how the conflict will be resolved. Avoidance was a technique used in this scenario, but avoidance didn’t help the situation, with collaboration staff can see what the conflict is and arrive at a solution. Teamwork helps prevent overworking of staff and promotes positive patient outcomes. Avoiding conflict can be difficult because some conflict is unavoidable. Health Care Profession Conflict Resolution Essay.
Once the conflict reaches a certain level it will begin to have adverse effects and can result in increased turnover and absenteeism, reduced coordination and collaboration, and lower efficiency” (Spector & Jex, De Dreu et al. as cited by Almost, 2006, pg. 444). Increased absenteeism within the nursing ranks will result in additional negative outcomes for the remaining nurses and the organization as a whole. Unfortunately, when one nurse decides not to come to work it leaves fewer nurses to care for the same number of patients. In some instances it is beneficial to coordinate and collaborate with others in order to determine the best course of action for a particular problem. When there is a reduction in coordination and collaboration the best course of action may not be the one used on multiple occasions. These issues along with reduced efficiency all result in overall less care and support for the patients that nurses are charged to care for and treat. After a certain level of conflict or numerous issues, there will be some nurses that will decide to seek employment elsewhere thus causing increased turnover of personnel. Health Care Profession Conflict Resolution Essay. This not only affects the organization but it also affects the nurses. As far as the organization is concerned, it takes time, effort, and resources to train and develop a nurse to the level that is expected of someone that works within the organization. Also, until that nurse reaches
This write up aims at exploring a conflict that occurred in an urban private hospital concerning a patient, relatives and medical team. Its purpose is to reflect and critically study and understand a clinical incident and use it as a learning episode by use of reflective model. To identify the measures put in place to manage the conflict and the type of leadership skills and leadership theories used to resolve the conflict. Gibbs reflective cycle will be used to expound on the scenario as it unfolded. This is because Gibbs is clear and thus allows description, analysis and evaluation of the experience helping me to make sense of experiences and examines my practice (Gibbs, 1988).
Conflict can be defined as disagreement in which the people involved feels that their needs, interests and concerns are threatened. Health care related conflicts are complicated because the care process is ongoing and involving a lot of emotional effort and professional relationships therefore tends to occur frequently and thus interpersonal conflicts, (Johansen, 2012)
Incident description
I once worked in private urban hospital and while there on my practice I encountered a scenario that left me thinking on how well our patients are informed and involved in their care. On this particular day I reported to work as usual and received the report in a high dependency unit, about the unit and the patients admitted. Special report given was that there were some pending investigative procedures on two patients to be facilitated by one consultant. This investigation were requested on the previous day therefore follow up was to be done during this shift to ensure they are done.
After receiving the report we went for quick unit round and assessed the patient status and then the unit manager embarked on contacting the consultant to come and do the tests, efforts to trace him were futile since his phone was not going through. The unit manager contacted the second on call for the same and said that he was out of town thus not in a position of performing the test the same day. Health Care Profession Conflict Resolution Essay. In this particular organization the patient and relatives are appraised on daily basis of everything that it’s to be done therefore the relatives were eagerly waiting for the test result when they came back during the visiting. When the relatives came back they wanted to know the test results unfortunately they were not available because the test had not been done, the manager and the doctor covering the unit tried to explain to them in vain.
They became very furious and agitated and started using abusive language. Efforts to make them understand were futile. They walked out of the unit to have a discussion among themselves and in 30minutes they were back demanding that their patient be discharged against medical advice so that they can outsource the service elsewhere saying “you people do not care about our patient but we care about him and we are ready do anything possible to facilitate this test been done”. They signed the form for leaving against medical advice and left.
From this episode a crisis meeting was convened to include the medical director, director of nursing the unit in-charge and the doctor who was covering the unit then and a critical analysis and evaluation of the scenario was done and it was resolved that this particular consultant always have an issue with his patient whenever he is on call and therefore it was agreed that the director of medical services and nursing service will meet with the doctor and have a one on one discussion in order to prevent a recurrence.
It was also agreed that we follow up on this particular patient and find out what was their progress and whether they went for the test and to even apologize to them and let them understand that we care and patients interest come first and only that there was a problem on that day, the patient was traced and found to be doing well and they never went for the test on that particular day they had to wait until the next since they could not get the service where they went because it’s the same consultant who doing the procedure in that facility and therefore opted to come back to our facility for readmission and they very apologetic and remorseful for the actions “we regret our action and we want to apologize for unnecessary attention that we demanded for while your efforts was to ensure for better outcome of patient. We are sincerely sorry for the disturbance and our shameful acts” we reassured the relatives and readmitted the patient for continued care. Health Care Profession Conflict Resolution Essay.
Feelings
This experience made me feel like we failed no matter how we tried explaining to the client and his relatives it never seemed to be working. I also felt that we failed to meet our goal of ensuring that patients are satisfied with the services they receive, though the unit manager was very composed throughout this situation and handled the relatives with a lot of care and caution she never seemed to be worked up by their demand.
This leader portrayed very good qualities that I really admired and felt that I should emulate, she had a good charisma. Felt that she was a transformational leader because she displayed charisma and we as her juniors followed her way of instituting measures in place. She was able to reason with the relatives and explain on the events as they were unfolding even though they never paid any attention or reasoned with her, she explained of the challenge we were facing in the situation. She engaged the relative by stimulating them to understand through use of logical questions and exploring on their assumptions (Hendel, Fish & Galon, 2005).
I also felt the manager had some qualities of transactional leader because she was able to monitor the performance and step in to correct the situations as they arose and also utilized passive management since the problem arose unexpectedly and therefore rushed in to handle the situations (Hendel, Fish & Galon, 2005). Utilization of these skills gave the manager an upper hand in handling the furious relatives and creating their understanding even though they decided to leave the hospital. Health Care Profession Conflict Resolution Essay.
Convening a crisis meeting by the management was a very important step as this created an opportunity to address the issue as it happened and come up with solutions to prevent recurrence and provide steps in handling the situation in case it recurs. The affected consultant was also give an opportunity to explain what transpired and he had a genuine reason because he was in theater doing a procedure and he called back to the facility after he was done to inquire why we were calling him them.
I felt that the relatives also have role to play during care of their loved by been supportive and establishing a trusting professional relationship with the health professional to establish a common working ground. Decision to withdraw the patient from the hospital was solely made by the relative and the patient felt vulnerable and tossed around since he could not make sound decision there compromising on the patient care in the name of seeking for a service.
Evaluation
This episode provided a learning situation for me as I experience how difficult it might be in handling clients that you have already established a professional relationship with, and with all efforts to try and let the clients understand the situation by providing them with information.Health Care Profession Conflict Resolution Essay. What was good about this incident is that the manager was very calm and composed all through and understood the feelings of the relatives concerning their loved one. She was able to utilize her skills optimally to handle the situation. What was bad about the situation is that the investigation was not carried out and the clients felt ignored or left out and thus opted to leave the hospital and seek services elsewhere as fate would have its way they never accessed the services on the material day because most of them are outsourced and the same consultant does the procedure in the facility they went too. They were embarrassed by their behavior and even come back to apologize on the same and we reassured them. Eventually they brought the patient for readmission.
Study done in an Israel hospital on conflict resolution on nursing managers indicated that they mostly utilized transformational leadership style because it allows for creativity and flexibility in problem solving and scrutinizing all protocols and policies set to manage situation through critical analysis (Hendel, Fish & Galon, 2005).
Actions to withdraw the patient and interrupt care compromised on the patient health status and even the expected outcome.
Analysis
From this situation the patient’s relatives were right in demanding for action because they had been explained about the test, its importance and why the result may be needed to make decision on the way forward in patient’s management. On the same case having not done the test on the same day would not have worsened patient’s condition and still medical management would still be ongoing as we awaited the test to be done. The crisis meeting organized ensured the lasting solution is availed in order to improve on patient care and therefore a ensure quality care leading to better patient outcome. Health Care Profession Conflict Resolution Essay.
To effectively resolve a conflict a better understanding should be ensured through clear communication and understanding the crisis leading to disagreement. Therefore conflict resolution becomes an important aspect in prevention of errors occurring (Sportsman & Hamilton, 2007).
The unit manager utilized the transformational theory and understood that followers are an important aspect to facilitate leadership and that the follower is always accountable and with skills to critiques scenarios and issues as they unfold just like the leader does. Similar to the incident the manger took control of the situation vividly which was a learning opportunity for in the unit that day as potential leaders (Daft, 2008). Health Care Profession Conflict Resolution Essay.
Conclusion
From this incident it can be concluded that the health team played their part well though an element of ineffective communication is evident since the relatives were aware that the test needed to be done in order to make decision on the management therefore emphasis had been put across thus explains their fury when it was not done.
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Leadership experience plays an important role in ensuring or equipping the leader with skills to handle situation in future thus creating an understanding of the theories used in leadership. For one to be effective leader one must learn whom they are what are the strengths and weaknesses establish a personal philosophy and be strong to stand firm and represent what we believe in terms of patients care and skills of conflict resolution (Daft, 2008).
Action plan
To work as a team is an important aspect of nursing and that effective communication is paramount in ensuring that the patient and relatives are well informed on the care provided to their loved ones. This experience has been an eye opener in me and it has made me realize that I can never be ready to solve a conflict this because each occurrence is always unique and present in a different manner, therefore utilization of leaderships skills become important. This will change the current practice because more emphasis will be on passing information to the relevant bodies. Health Care Profession Conflict Resolution Essay.
References.
Daft, R.L. (2008). The Leadership experience. Mason, OH: SouthWestern.
Gibbs, G., (1988) Learning by doing: a guide to teaching and learning methods, Oxford Polytechnic Further Education unit.
Hendel T., Fish M & Galon V. (2005) Leadership style and choice of strategy in conflict management among Israeli nurse managers in general hospitals; Journal of Nursing Management13, 137–146
Mary L. Johansen (2012 ) Keeping the peace: Conflict management strategies for nurse managers Nursing Management: 43 ( 2) doi: 10.1097/01.NUMA.0000410920.90831.96
Sportsman S, Hamilton P(2007;). Conflict management styles in the health professions. J Prof Nurs. 23(3):157–166. Health Care Profession Conflict Resolution Essay.
