Conflict Resolution at the St. Clare Hospital

Conflict Resolution at the St. Clare Hospital  

Name

HCA 305

Dr. Prince Ordu

April 20, 2015

Conflict Resolution at the St. Clare Hospital

Understanding workplace conflict and knowing how to handle it are extremely important managerial skills, and health care organizations are no exception. Frates (2014) says having work teams at all organizational levels openly and vigorously debate their ideas is a form of healthy conflict that produces both stronger team relationships and better work outcomes. If unhealthy conflict arises within an organization and is not addressed, it can create internal turmoil, reduce productivity, and increase turnover.

Types of conflict identified in this case are intra-organizational conflict, interpersonal conflict, and relationship conflicts. Intra-organizational conflict occurred regarding a wide range of measures in interdependence of departments. The CEO of St. Clare hospital, James Edwards knows that the physicians play a critical role in controlling costs. The physicians are not interested in cooperating with Edwards to support or recover its potentialities. The interpersonal conflict in this case deals with people focused conflicts. People focused conflicts are more about what transpires, or has previously transpired, between the parties. When this conflict becomes intense, the level of emotion is high and the negative repercussions can be long lasting. Healthy conflict refers to issue-based conflict; when a dispute becomes person focused, it is much more difficult to resolve since it is more emotional than rational (Frates, 2014). Mr. Edwards hired a chief operating officer, Wendy Jones, empowering her to cut hospital costs. Ms. Jones fired the radiologist, Dr. Harris and then outsourced the interpretation of imaging readings. With the new outsourcing in place for two weeks, it has led to 18% of inaccurate interpretations of image readings. This could cause potential future legal liabilities. The last conflict identified in this case is relationship conflict. There are numerous types of operational relationships: between individuals (interpersonal); within groups (intra-organizational); and between organizations (inter-organizational). Inter-organizational, and to a certain extent intra-organizational, relationships involve different stakeholder groups. The relationship conflict deals with inter-organizational. The physicians are having a conflict with the executive leaders of the hospital resulting in a call for action.

There are numerous types of conflict and a variety of approaches to conflict management. In Conflict and Interpersonal Relations, author Ledlow defines conflict as the result of varying goals among interdependent individuals in situations with limited available resources most commonly, staff and money. In the context of health organizations, conflict most often takes place when two or more individuals have different intentions about a particular clinical or business process or how to resolve a particular problem (Ledlow, 2009). A conflict management style in this case is competing. Satisfying one’s own needs at the expense of the other party. Sometimes it’s necessary to fight for an issue the CEO considers vital to St. Clare Hospital’s welfare. The COO, Ms. Jones made a vital decision quickly by outsourcing the interpretations of image readings and firing the radiologist, Dr. Harris.

Conflict resolution strategies involve establishing or restoring communication, interpersonal relationships, cultural competence, empathy, and trust. Given the wide variety of personality types, there is the potential for both healthy and unhealthy conflict at every level. Therefore, managers need to understand and effectively manage conflict within these relationships in order to foster organizational success (Frates, 2014). Cultural background as well as personality influences conflict management styles, since cultural values are present during workplace conflicts. There is no one best way to manage conflict; rather, there are a range of conflict management styles that health care professionals can employ depending on the situational context. Personality, gender, and culture all influence how an individual or group perceives and reacts to conflict. Managers need to understand how race, culture, and gender shape both perceptions of and approaches to conflict management in order to develop optimally effective methods for conflict resolution. Diversity training and appreciation programs can help managers learn about and deepen their understanding of the influence of race, culture, and gender in conflict management (Turner & Shuter, 2004). Dean Tjosvold proposed a cooperative conflict model which recognizes that the way people perceive their goals in relation to the goals of others influences their behavior toward either cooperation or competition. When people perceive their goals to be positively related to those of others, they believe that their individual achievement depends on others achieving their goals. In contrast, when people believe that their goals are competitive with the goals of others, they reason that if others succeed they will fail. The leadership challenge is to get people to realize that their goals are interrelated, even though they may have very different ideas about how best to achieve them (Frates, 2014).