Communication Needs Of Health Professionals -Myassignmenthelp.Com

Question: Discuss About The Communication Needs Of Health Professionals? Answer: Introduction: Organizations are the very foundation of the industrial growth of any nation. And every organization regardless of the domain it belongs to, function on the foundation of harmony. This harmony comes from the collaborative co-operation from the external and internal stakeholders associated with the organization. However, it has to be mentioned that organizations can be of various different types, it can be commercial and it can be public service oriented. Although, in both of the cases, with collaboration among the different stakeholders, the productive success cannot be attained by the organizations. Health care can be considered an organizational domain where the cooperation and collaborative expertise from professionals belonging to multidisciplinary domains are united to provide assistance and care to the sick and ailing (Barbour et al., 2011). Now it has to be mentioned that in organizational scenario, regardless of it being commercial or public services, the equilibrium of collaboration and cooperation can be disrupted by any external factors, and one significant type is conflict. And in case of a healthcare organization, the interpersonal conflict can lead to severe consequences for the patients. That is where the concept of managerial or organization leadership comes to save the day (Brinkert, 2010). It has to be understood that organizational leaders of managers serve the purpose of ensuring smooth performance and steady productivity, and in order to do so, conflict resolution is a very important step to be performed. The importance of conflict resolution is optimal in health care scenario, and there is need for the right strategies and competencies to be able to successfully overcome the conflict and restore harmony (Brown et al., 2011). This assignment will attempt to explore and evaluate the conflict resolution stra tegies and competencies required from organizational leaders in the health care scenario taking the help of a case study. Case description: It has been mentioned that conflict is an inevitable part of everyday life. It has to be understood that no two people will have similar understanding and perception, and hence disagreement is inevitable. However, in certain cases, where the disagreement or conflict leads to harming any stakeholder associated with the organization required steps need to be taken to both resolve the conflict and ensure that the best interest of all the stakeholders associated with the scenario are protected. This case study represents a situation where an administrative staff has a conflict or disagreement with a medical practitioner and as a result the best interest of the patients associated with the healthcare facility is getting hampered. On a more elaborative note, it can be mentioned that the doctor in this case study has been a senior physician, who had been associated with the facility for a long time and have been a respected and important part of the facility. However despite his experience and expertise, he has been neglecting his responsibility to the clinic and has been rescheduling and postponing his patient visits for the rest of the day. It has to be mentioned in this context that the case study represents the doctor had already cancelled clinic visits twice in a month and the third cancellation might affect the patients who have been waiting to be seen by him for more than 3 months. Despite being notified by the administrative staff Cindy, the doctor neglected his responsibility of visiting his patients and went off after rescheduling again. Here, the administrative staff is faced with a professional dilemma where have work ethics restricted her from abiding to the desires of the doctor and made her confront the managers about the situation. It needs to be addressed here that the physician had been neglecting his responsibilities towards the clinic and to his patients for a long time now and being a ethical professional, Cyndi had been in dilemma because the patients had to suffer for the lack of professional integrity of the said doctor. However as soon as confrontation with the manager about the lack of professional integrity of the doctor and his recent slacking behavior happened, the confrontation with the doctor had been delayed by involving many other stakeholders associated with the healthcare facility like the medical officer, executive director, human resources director, and union representative. Along with that it also has to be mentioned that despite informing the higher authority about the professional discre pancies of the doctor, the doctor was never mentioned about the confrontation and when the final meeting happened the doctor was caught off-guard and had not been prepared at all (Deutsch, Coleman Marcus, 2011). Hence, he was enraged and the healthy professional conduct between Dr Jones and Cyndi was destroyed by the lack of any conflict resolution tendencies in both of them. As a result the doctor had been labeled as a disruptive and irresponsible professional, which angered him and made him feel betrayed and unappreciated whereas, in case of Cindy, she had to eventually resign due to the fear in all the different department physicians of being targeted. This case represents a scenario where the lack of conflict resolution and middle management led to irreparable circumstances and as an end result both parties were affected (Ezziane et al., 2012). Nature and origin of the conflict: According to the Finkelman (2015), professional conflict can be defined as the friction originated from any real or perceived incompatibility among two or more workers that affects the operational performance and hampers the best interest of the all the stakeholders associated with the organizational scenario. From the analysis of the case study described above, it has to be mentioned in this context that the conflict is between the senior physician, Dr Jones and the administrative staff Cindy had many misunderstandings and negative perceptions regarding one another and due to the lack of communication and comfort between both of them, they were not able to resolve the issues that was rising in between them. It has to be mentioned that the first rule of conflict resolution is effective and participative communication, in this case Cindy could not communicate with Dr Johns regarding perception and understanding of the frequent cancellations and early leaving by the doctor. As a result , she could never explore the point of view of the doctor, and the misunderstanding grew into a conflict, endangering the professional competence of the both of them (Fisher, 2012). Hence, it can be mentioned that the interpersonal relationship conflict that both parties of the case study experience and pain due to behavioral misconduct misinterpretation, misunderstanding, lack of communicational comfort, and collaborative Cooperation. For the conflict that has been presented in the case study, intervention from the management team to resolve the conflict had been necessary (Marcus, Dorn McNulty, 2011). Although, the interventions planned and executed by the management has also had negative outcome and the conflict resolution approach taken by the management has also been useless. If I had been given the responsibility of conflict resolution in this case, I would have implemented a combination of different strategic conflict resolution steps and communication strategies in order to achieve a more fruitful effect which would have safe guarded the best interest of both parties involved. Conflict resolution First and foremost, it has to be mentioned that the conflict resolution interventions must begin with face to face communication. The management entasked with resolving the conflict must begin with arranging a face to face communication session for both Cindy and Dr Jones so that with the mediation of a managerial leader for smoothing the communication process. It has to be understood that the basis behind the step taken by Cindy had been a perception that the Doctor has been disrupting and slacking off on his professional responsibilities. However, in this case the doctor might also have had any personal health issues or any personal problem that has been overwhelming his working hours and his commitment to the profession. The face to face communication between them can help them both to present their perceptions and reasons and the organizational leader will get to know both sides of the story (Mayer, 2010). Along with that, it has to be mentioned that for this case study, along with cost that the both Cindy and Dr Jones had to pay for the communication misconduct had a detrimental impact on the rest of the staff as well. The labeling of Dr Jones affected his professional expertise and competence, the health care facility had to sustain a loss of an able and expert senior physician. And along with that, a loyal staff with high professional ethics and integrity had to resign which put forth a representation of fear regarding acting on professional ethics in the rest of the staff. It has to be mentioned that the staff must always be encouraged to follow professional ethics and loyalty, hence the resignation by Cindy has the risk of spreading a negative; professional culture in the organization (Pavlakis et al., 2011). As a manager, my conflict resolution strategy will also include one to one counseling and interaction session where both the parties involved will attend individually a couns eling session from wither me or a professional counselor. In case of Cindy, the counseling strategy will focus on motivating and congratulating her for the work ethics and fearless commitment that she had exhibited even with the risk of her being convicted for the act. Along with that she will be given the loyalty recognition for her courage and fearlessness so that she is motivated to continue with the health care facility (Ramsbotham, Miall Woodhouse, 2011). A very similar counseling approach will be taken for the doctor as well, however he will be encouraged to share his concerns with the management and according to the issues that he had been facing he would be given solutions to help him regain control of the workload that he is dealing with. Along with that he would be encouraged and motivated to recover from this minor setback and revert back to his former professional routine without any regret or shame. The third issue that the conflict of this case scenario had been the discrimination among the rest of staff and the labeling of both Cindy and Dr Jones is a contributing factor behind the isolation and betrayal they had been feeling. In order to cope with this issue, the labeling and discrimination will also need to death with. A public survey or poll will be held to discover all the employees, both physician and administrative, who take too much early leaves and cancel patient visits to understand the severity of the issue and how many staff are engaging in it. This will help in identifying all the employees who are in need for administrative attention to solve the issues and along with that the discrimination in labeling will stop as almost all employees will be held accountable for the number of leaves and cancellations they have been taking. Lastly, I would also like to mention that communication, or the lack thereof, is the main issue behind a wide variety of interpersonal conflicts that arise in healthcare scenarios (Saundry, McArdle Thomas, 2013). There is a need for a weekly communication session involving all the staff so that they can sort out any interpersonal communication issues and there are no communication caps leading to severe conflicts. As a part of the management committee with the responsibility of conflict resolution, I will also ensure to take a long term strategy to incorporate a communication session between the staff where they can interact with each other and build a professional rapport that will not only help them resolve any conflicts in between themselves in the near future but will also help them build cooperative and mutually respectful professional relationship (Robbins Judge, 2012). Conclusion: On a concluding note it can be mentioned that the conflict and interpersonal issues are very common in any organization, especially with communication. Hence it is acutely important for the managerial staff to have competencies and skills in understanding the conflict situation and acting upon it quickly to ensure minimal disruption to the work processes. Taking into consideration the case study, a rising conflict among the employees of a health care facility can have a detrimental impact on the patients and the care they are getting. Hence, there is need for a active communication between the staff at all times and the organizational management must also plan and execute sessions to encourage better interaction and professional relationship among the staff. References: Barbour, Virginia, Clark, Jocalyn, Jones, Susan, Norton, Melissa, Veitch, Emma. (2011). Health care systems and conflict: A fragile state of affairs.(Editorial).PLoS Medicine,8(7), E1001065. Brinkert, R. (2010). A literature review of conflict communication causes, costs, benefits and interventions in nursing.Journal of nursing management,18(2), 145-156. Brown, J., Lewis, L., Ellis, K., Stewart, M., Freeman, T., Kasperski, M. (2011). Conflict on interprofessional primary health care teams can it be resolved?Journal of Interprofessional Care,25(1), 4-10. 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