Conflict in the healthcare organization due to disruptive behavior of physicians
Discuss about the Handling Conflict for Nurses in Emergency Departments.
Conflict management in the health care organization is time consuming but it is an essential part of effective leadership in the clinical practice. An efficient leader should know how to manage conflicts in the health care organization in order to provide safety to the patient and maintain healthy environment in the work place (Huber, 2017). There are many types of conflict that could take place in a health care organization. Conflict may occur between the health professionals such as between the physicians or between physician and the nurse or between the nurses. Conflict also can occur between the staffs of the health care organization and the patients or the family of the patients. The conflicts could range from disagreement on some small decisions to huge controversies related to management or the service provided by the health care organization (Van, 2013). Such conflicts lead to the violation of the rules and regulation of the health care organization and disrupt the work culture of the organization. The conflicts also have adverse effect on the service provided by the organization and its productivity. Question could be raised about the patient care and safety from the conflicts. Such situation in the health care organization could lead to high employee turnover and it could affect the motivation of the staffs to contribute efficiently. Verbal, sexual or physical abuse may take place from the conflicts (Albashtawy, 2013). Thus, it is important for the management of the health care organization to manage such conflicts in an effective manner. In the recent days, society has reduced the tolerance of such disruptive situation and health care organizations also has started to take steps in order to mitigate such situation in the organization and maintain healthy and comfortable environment for both the staffs and the patients (Saeed et al., 2014). The essay will focus on one of such conflicts in the health organization. The chosen situation for the assignment is conflict due to the disruptive behavior of physician. The paper will provide brief idea about the conflict that occur due to dysfunctional physician, its impact on the patient and the work environment and effective strategies to reduce the number of such incidents in the health care organization and mitigate such conflicts in an effective manner.
As mentioned before, conflict in health care organization may cause due to various factors and conflicts nay occur between the physicians, nurses, staffs, patients and the family of the patients as well. One of the conflicts that have been found in the health care organization is related to the disruptive behavior of the physicians in the organization. There are some physicians in the health care centre that are exceptionally talented, have high IQ level but they lack emotional intelligence. One of the main problems of such physicians is their temper outburst even in the small matters. Such nature of the physician results in disruptive behavior that includes loud irreverence to any person including staffs of the organization and the patients as well, throwing instruments to the nearest one and verbal abuse (Sanchez, 2014). The nurses, technician and the staffs of the health care centre have the right to be treated respectfully. Such behavior of a physician in the organization leads to the violation of the rights and dignity of other staffs thus results in conflict between the physician and the staffs (McCarthy & Gastmans, 2015). The disruptive behavior and attitude of the physicians increase the stress in the health care team. Thus, the team member loss their efficiency to work that result in the huge turnover of the staffs and the team became dysfunctional. When the behavior of a physician reached that level enormous negative factors started to work that affects the communication process of the team that could lead to the communication gap between the staffs and the physician (Peggy, 2013). The physician may losses the support of the colleague and the staffs thus he or she could be isolated in the health organization (Edward et al., 2014). Verbal abuse and physical attack in the health care organization could not be tolerated by the other staffs, thus such situation could lead to severe conflict in the health care organization (Duncan et al., 2016).
Impact of the conflict on the patient
The situation could turn into many form such as, retaliation may occur in this case, failure in assessment may result due to the situation and service provided by the health care team could be affected under such circumstances. In the severe case lawsuit may be initiated against the physician for such disruptive behavior that could result in the malpractice suit against the physician and malicious sabotage of clinical practice as well. Lack of effective action against such behavior and the conflict could be considered by the court as the matter of negligence or remitting an ambivalent work culture in the health care organization (Tingle & Cribb, 2013). On the other hand such news regarding the conflict could affect the image of the health care organization, thus affect the productivity of the organization. Thus, once such conflict is identified in the health care organization, effective interventions should be made in order to mitigate the conflict in an effective manner. Such action is necessary to be taken not only to ensure the quality of the service provided by the health care team but also to ensure the patient safety and provide safe and healthy work place to the staffs of the health organization (Okuyama, Wagner & Bijnen, 2014). The management team needs to be aware of such situation. They should know how to manage such difficult people in the organization. Such conflict could disrupt the whole culture of the health care organization, thus it is important to provide focus on the disruptive behavior of the physicians to control it before the conflict could occur in order to avoid the stressful situation and achieve the goal of providing satisfactory care service to the people with need in an effective manner.
Beside the health worker the conflict in the health care organization affects the health condition of the patients as well. When the health workers are facing negative activity in the work place they started to lack motivation to provide effective care service to the patients, thus started to neglect their responsibility. Such negligence affects their ability to provide timely care to the patients. Such incident affects the health condition of the patients. Critical patients’ lack proper attention at the time of need due to the negative impact of the conflict thus create question about the patient centered care in the health organization (Weiner et al., 2015). Lack of communication between the physician and the staffs of the organization also affects the health condition of the patients. For example, withheld of information regarding the patient may occur due to communication gap. The staffs may withhold important information about the patient to the physician due to the outburst of temper that could affect the well-being of the patients to an extent (ref). Provide patient safety is the most important ethical code of nursing and occurrence of such incident in the health care organization may threat the safety factor of the patients. Thus, it is important to provide focus on such matter to provide effective service and ensure patient safety in the health care organization (James, 2013). Another problem that the patient may face is feeling uncomfortable in the stressful environment of the health care organization. The loud voice, verbal or physical abuse could affect the physical and mental of the patients. It is important to provide calm environment to the patient in order to focus on their heath condition, but the tension in the health care organization may affect their mind and break their concentration. Thus, it could become hard for the patient to stay in the health care centre under such stressful circumstances (Okuyama, Wagner & Bijnen, 2014).
Apart from such difficulties in residing in the health care organization during illness the patient may face life threatening risk in the organization due to the conflict. It is important to be calm mentally and physically while providing care to the patients otherwise it could put someone’s life in danger. The negative impact if the conflict create disturbance in the mind of the health workers. Such disturbance may affect their attention while providing critical risk assessment to the patients. Thus, they could do any huge mistake that could act as the life threatening situation for the patient (Okuyama, Wagner & Bijnen, 2014). On the other hand, the mental patients or patients with cognitive impairment could suffer from mental distress due to such conflict between the physician and the other health workers. The form of assault like loud irreverence and throwing instrument to any random person could create fear within such patients. Thus, they could refuse to avail care service from the physician. The patient could become panic and could create problem for the other patients. Such situation could create difficulties for the health workers in order to manage such patients in the health care organization (James, 2013). In addition the family members of the patient could create objection against such situation in the health care organization. Everyone expect appropriate care service from the health care team, thus they trust the health organization and admit their patients to the organization. If such case of carelessness and irresponsibility occur in the health care centre the family member of the patients could involve in the conflict thus make the situation more severe. It is the duty of the health workers to provide full attention and effective care to the patient in order to help them to get rid of their illness considering the safety factor. If they fail to provide safety to the patient, the family members of the patient could initiate legal step against the health care organization that could affect the image of the organization (Tingle & Cribb, 2013). Thus, it is important to manage such conflicts in an effective manner so that the health service providers could ensure the patient safety and patients could stay in the hospital without any difficulties.
Pleasant working environment provides enthusiasm to the workers of the organization in order to fulfill their responsibilities without any barriers. The health work place needs to be calm so that the health workers could concentrate on their work and provide effective care service to the patients. The conflict in the health care organization affects the working environment of the organization to an extent. Due to the conflict the workplace becomes stressful. People become tensed in such working environment. That affects their ability to contribute effectively in their service. Such stressful situation plays an important role in order to demotivate the health workers. Due to lack of motivation employee retention become difficult for the management in the health care organization (Koinis et al., 2015). The assault in the health care organization creates violence in the workplace. Most of the employee leaves their job due to abuse in the workplace and the health care organization is no exception to such critical statistics (Holloway & Galvin, 2016). Incident of violence between physicians and the other staffs of the health organization has been reported as the changing pattern of clinical practice due creating stress in the work place. The physical assault like throwing instruments to the nearest person could take severe form. Minor to severe accident could take place from the situation that could cause injury to both the staffs and the patients thus could hamper the effective working environment to the staffs (Phillips, 2016). Due to the temper outburst of the physician the nurses and other health workers face verbal, mental or physical abuse. Such abuse could raise the questions related to rights and dignity of the health workers in the organization. It is the right of every health worker and other staffs of t he health organization to be treated respectfully in the work place. Thus, such situation could lead to the violation of nursing ethics and could create a condition of discrimination in the health care organization. Such discrimination in the work place could influence the health workers to take step against it and the conflict would become more severe (Baptiste, 2015). Due to the disruptive behavior of the physician in the health care organization he or she may lack the support of the health care team. Such situation could lead to the lack of ability to manage the health care team. The physician may become isolated in the work place so that no one could like to communicate with the person. Such communication gap could create dysfunctional team in the health care centre and create a negative environment in the work place. Such negativity could affect the working ability of the health workers and influence the quality of service provided by them. Such working environment is not acceptable in any industry. Thus the health care organization should provide proper focus to mitigate such conflict in an effective manner to provide comfortable working environment to the health workers so that they could provide attention to the patients and fulfill their requirement without any complaint (Fallahi-Khoshknab et al., 2016).
Conflict due to the disruptive behavior of the physician creates negative environment in the work place. Thus the health workers become demotivated and they could not focus on their work and fail to fulfill their responsibilities. Such incident is a direct threat for the patient health and safety. Hence the conflict could take severe structure and legal action may be taken against the physician and the health care organization as well (Tingle & Cribb, 2013). Thus it is important to mitigate such conflicts in an effective manner in order to provide suitable working environment to the health workers and ensure patient safety in the health care organization. The continuous dysfunctional behavior of the physician could increase the level of stress and negativity within the other staffs of the organization. Hence, once such behavior is identified, it is important to take effective interventions in order to resolve the issue in the beginning, otherwise in case of legal action the court could consider the situation as the negligence of the organization regarding hostile work environment (Nelson, 2014). Thus, at first team approach is needed to be made where face to face discussion between the physician and the staffs should be done in order to understand the problem of the each team member in the organization (Conrad, 2014). It could help to build effective professional relationship in the organization. If the situation becomes volatile and efforts provided by the management team regarding face to face discussion, the management could introduce a mediator such as a supervisor. The mediator should remain objective and listen to the concern of both participants in order to facilitate the process of resolution. Significant incidents of disruptive behavior such as verbal abuse or throwing instruments need to be documented and the management should provide focus to the behavior and not to the personality. Considering the seriousness of the incident the management should provide warning to the physician to change the behavior. Effective communication skill could help to mitigate the issue in an effective manner. The communication with the physician and the staffs need to be clear. During communication with the health professionals it is important to consider the rights and the dignity of individual (Gastmans, 2013). It is important to listen to both the participants in the conflict before reaching the conclusion (Keyton et al., 2013). In this way the management would be able to recognize the difficulties of the individual and could introduce initiatives without creating any ethical issue. In order to prevent such conflicts in the health organization the professional code of conduct should introduce effective practice policies. The management should introduce an effective disciplinary structure in the organization to maintain professionalism in the organization (Blais et al., 2015). Proper legal steps need to be taken by the organization in case of irresponsible action regarding patient care and safety. The action taken by the health organization should be effective enough so that every health workers could understand that there are limitations on inappropriate behavior. It is important for the management to be aware that they should not take the employees for granted, the management need to be capable of keeping promise related to the resolution of the conflict and the management needs to be able to take responsibility for the errors in the workplace (Hendricks & Cope, 2013). It is important to improve the emotional intelligence in the health workers and engender it in the workplace to maintain calm and comfortable working environment in the health care organization (Chan, Sit & Lau, 2014). Such improvement in the organization could help to reduce the number of conflicts in the health organization and the health workers could improve their ability to provide care service. Thus, patient centered care and patient safety would be focused by them.
Conclusion:
From the above discussion it can be concluded that, like other industries the health care industry also bears some conflicts. Such conflicts may arise between the physicians, nurses, other staffs, patients and the family of the patients. Such conflicts lead to the disruption of effective working culture and reduction in the quality of the service provided by the health care organization. The stressful situation due to the disruptive behavior is the example of one of such conflict in the health care industry. There are some physicians that are talented enough but they lack emotional intelligence. One of the main problems with such physicians is the temper outburst. Their nature of disruptive behavior includes loud irreverence, verbal abuse and throwing instruments to the any person nearest to them. Such situation leads to the discrimination in the work place and the violation of the rights and the dignity of the health workers in the organization. Due to such behavior the physician lacks the support of the team and become isolated. Such incidents create negativity in the work place. This negativity affects the working efficiency of the health workers and they fail to perform their duty effectively. Such stressful situation affect the health and the living condition of the patient in the hospital, thus raise question about the patient centered care and the patient safety in the organization. Such situation could lead to the law suits against the physician and the health care organization as well, thus affects the image and the productivity of the organization. Hence, it is important to provide proper focus to such matters in order to introduce effective strategies t mitigate the conflict in the health industry. It is expected that with the strategies provided by the paper the issue of conflict in the health care organization could be addressed in an effective manner
Reference:
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