Sunrise is a 300-bed general hospital located in northeastern New York. The last

Question

Sunrise is a 300-bed general hospital located in northeastern New York. The last couple of months have been very stressful for its nursing personnel because of an increased volume of patients after the closing of its nearby competitor. The hospital acquired all its competitor’s workload and saw a significant rise in profit. The associate managers were inundated with complaints from the nurses and requests to seek assistance from upper management. The associate managers resisted informing upper management of this dilemma to prevent showing that they were unable to handle the new workload. Additionally, they did not know how to address the nurses’ concerns with upper management. After a couple of weeks of heavy work flow, the nurses decided in unison to go on strike on a very busy day in the hospital. Upper management was stunned when they arrived at the hospital and saw all the nurses picketing outside their building. Discussion Questions 1. Discuss barriers and issues (explicit and implicit) in communication that lead to this dilemma. 2. How should upper management address the current problem. You answer must consider what to do about the communication barriers identified above as well as the concerns (implicit and explicit) of BOTH the associate managers and the nurses.

Explanation / Answer

These are my views after studying the case.

Ans 1.

There must have been several barriers and issues which led to this dilemma. Situations got aggravated on closing of their competitor hospitals nearby.So, sunrise acquired all the workload of its competitor, to deal with such a situation it required proper study,management,communication,manpower and infrastructural advancements in their hospital.These barriers could have been:

a) Communication gap between upper management and associate managers of Sunrise

Due to lack of communication gap(including lack of good and friendly relationship) between associate managers and upper management they(Associate managers) might have feared to address the problem to them.

b)Not thinking about lower level workers or support staff(Nurses) and hospital

Associate managers became more selfish and became completely careless about their support staffs(Nurses) to get praise and good reviews from their upper managers,but they forgot that they cannot single handedly run the hospital.

c)Not familiar with proper process of addressing issues or problems to higher management

Associate managers seemed to be completely unfamiliar with the process of addressing the issues related to hospital to the higher management.

d)Communication gap between upper management and the support staffs or lower level workers(Nurses)

Due to lack of communication gap between higher level managers and lower level workers which led to such a situation, for proper functioning of any organisation there should be a good communication among everyone working at any position .

e) Lack of workforce and facilities

It can be identified that due to rise in workload implies rise in no. of patients to that hospital which increased the workloads on one nurse.this could have only be ruduced if there are sufficient number of nurses present per patient with equal number of beds in the hospital with other facilities.

Ans 2)

Now its the upper management whom has to deal with the situation,for this they have to first tihnk and ascertain the ways to establish good and friendly relation among their employees and staffs by this only they can completely iradicate communication gap present at any level.

They have to design a proper process to do so with proper engagement at various levels, addressing their queries solving their problems whether monthly or quarterly basis.

they should make their associate managers familarise with the process of addressing problems to upper management and make them more responsible, give them confidence and show faith on them.

To meet with the increased workload demand they need to make more appointments of nurses,increase the number of beds and other facilities in the hospital.

They have to design procedures to divide workload properly among managers and staffs,so that no one is having execessive work compared to others and keeping track of the progress on daily basis.

If these things are followed this situation will not arise again in future.

Related Questions

Navigate

• Browse (All)
• Browse S
• Subjects

Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.