Conflicts between medical staff members tend to have adverse consequences for both healthcare workers and patients. The researchers emphasize the difference between these conflicts and productive confrontations, as the former ones are characterized by a subjective sense of infringement of personal interests and a certain level of opposition (Jerng et al., 2017). The presented case illustrates the conceivable adverse effects of this phenomenon and provides an opportunity to analyze its possible ethical and legal implications. This paper discusses its potential issues and effects for each member of the healthcare team and analyzes strategies that may be implemented to prevent further episodes of potentially dangerous patient outcomes and required leadership qualities.
Potential Issues and Effects
It should be noted that the primary issue in this regard is the reduction in the efficiency and coherence of medical personnel. Researchers state that “destructive conflicts weaken collaboration, problem solving, and communication among employees” (Kim et al., 2017, p. 282). The presented situation could lead to the risk that the nurse practitioner will no longer be able to rely on the medical assistant and will perform part of his or her functions. It will definitely reduce the speed and efficiency of work.
Moreover, if the nurse practitioner had not seen the vital signs himself, he might not have provided the necessary assistance to the patient, which could potentially directly endanger his or her health. In such a case, it would obviously be an ethical violation on the part of a medical assistant who failed to perform his or her duties because of interpersonal conflict. Besides, if this resulted in severe consequences for the patient, both the nurse practitioner and the medical assistant could be held legally responsible. The legal involvement of the medical director is also not ruled out as the manager responsible for what happens in the office. Thus, the whole practice may reduce efficiency and have complex legal consequences due to such conflict situations.
Preventive Strategies
It should be emphasized that one of the best preventive strategies will be an effective mediation system. Healthcare professionals, in general, strive to report and resolve conflicts. According to Jerng et al. (2017), “the employees of the hospital applied the incident reporting system to actively report the workplace interpersonal conflicts although” it “was originally designed for the reporting of safety events” (p. 7). This means that medical personnel is actively seeking management’s help in resolving such confrontations. Accordingly, if there were additional professional mediators in hospitals, this could help to reduce conflicts. In addition, conflict resolution training can also contribute to this. Finally, a clear delineation of responsibilities will help to avoid clashes of authority between different health professionals.
Required Leadership Qualities
The consistency and clarity of the management should be especially emphasized among the leadership qualities that can prevent conflicts. According to Kim et al. (2017), “the top perceived conflict sources included unclear or multiple lines of authority, ambiguous task assignment, or mismatched goals” (p. 286). Thus, the confusion about one’s duties and tasks and the difficulty of separating them from other medical staff members’ responsibilities give rise to interpersonal clashes. The director should remove this ambiguity and establish clear rules of operation. Furthermore, a critical leadership quality, in this case, is the involvement in the affairs of medical personnel. This will provide an opportunity to identify prevalent tension in advance and to resolve conflicts before they may have created a dangerous situation for the patient.
Conclusion
It should be noted that disruptive conflicts among medical workers have a devastating impact on both the performance of the healthcare institution and the satisfaction of the employees themselves. At the same time, there are preventive strategies that can identify confrontations in time and propose effective solutions. The practice leader should give consistent and clear instructions in order not to create ambiguity in their understanding and be involved in the interpersonal relationships of the personnel.
References
Jerng, J. S., Huang, S. F., Liang, H. W., Chen, L. C., Lin, C. K., Huang, H. F.,… & Sun, J. S. (2017). Workplace interpersonal conflicts among the healthcare workers: Retrospective exploration from the institutional incident reporting system of a university-affiliated medical center. PloS One, 12(2), 1-13.
Kim, S., Bochatay, N., Relyea-Chew, A., Buttrick, E., Amdahl, C., Kim, L.,… & Lee, Y. M. (2017). Individual, interpersonal, and organisational factors of healthcare conflict: A scoping review. Journal of Interprofessional Care, 31(3), 282-290.