Communication and Relationship Building in Healthcare Organizations

Communication and relationship building in healthcare organizations

n this module’s Discussion, you applied the Clark Healthy Workplace

Inventory to diagnose potential problems with the civility of your organization. In this Portfolio Assignment, you will continue to analyze the results and apply published research to the development of a proposed treatment for any issues uncovered by the assessment.

To Prepare:

Review the Resources and examine the Clark Healthy Workplace Inventory, found on page 20 of Clark (2015).
Review the Work Environment Assessment Template.
Reflect on the output of your Discussion post regarding your evaluation of workplace civility and the feedback received from colleagues.
Select and review one or more of the following articles found in the Resources:
- Clark, Olender, Cardoni, and Kenski (2011)
- Clark (2018)
- Clark (2015)
- Griffin and Clark (2014)

The Assignment (3-6 pages total):

Part 1: Work Environment Assessment (1-2 pages)

Review the Work Environment Assessment Template you completed for this Module’s Discussion.
Describe the results of the Work Environment Assessment you completed on your workplace.
Identify two things that surprised you about the results and one idea you believed prior to conducting the Assessment that was confirmed.
Explain what the results of the Assessment suggest about the health and civility of your workplace.

Part 2: Reviewing the Literature (1-2 pages)

Briefly describe the theory or concept presented in the article(s) you selected.
Explain how the theory or concept presented in the article(s) relates to the results of your Work Environment Assessment.
Explain how your organization could apply the theory highlighted in your selected article(s) to improve organizational health and/or create stronger work teams. Be specific and provide examples.

Part 3: Evidence-Based Strategies to Create High-Performance Interprofessional Teams (1–2 pages)

Recommend at least two strategies, supported in the literature, that can be implemented to address any shortcomings revealed in your Work Environment Assessment.
Recommend at least two strategies that can be implemented to bolster successful practices revealed in your Work Environment Assessment.

Resources:

Select at least ONE of the following:
Clark, C. M., Olender, L., Cardoni, C., & Kenski, D. (2011). Fostering civility in nursing education and practice: Nurse leader perspectives. Journal of Nursing Administration, 41(7/8), 324–330. doi:10.1097/NNA.0b013e31822509c4
Note: You will access this article from the Walden Library databases.
Clark, C. M. (2018). Combining cognitive rehearsal, simulation, and evidence-based scripting to address incivility. Nurse Educator. doi:10.1097/NNE.0000000000000563
Note: You will access this article from the Walden Library databases.
Clark, C. M. (2015). Conversations to inspire and promote a more civil workplace. American Nurse Today, 10(11), 18–23. Retrieved from https://www.americannursetoday.com/wp-content/uplo…
My discussion post:

The Work Environment Assessment is a tool that aims to assess the health of one’s workplace based on employee satisfaction, shared mission, and other various factors. My final score was 76, which reflects a good climate for my workplace.

One of the points in my ranking that scored a 4 was that “Organization leaders were actively involved in collective leadership, joint decision-making, and policy development, revision, and review” (Clark, 2015). I assigned this score due to my organization’s quarterly mandatory seminars and training sessions. These meetings are designed to encourage positive behavioral trends among employees and promote practices encouraging collaboration and focus on a common goal.

Health care service is teamwork towards a common goal. There cannot be good health care delivery without employees working together towards a “shared goal, shared knowledge and mutual respect” (TEDx, 2017). Working with a team is relational. Each person’s contribution in the team is connected to another. At the end, everyone shares a common ownership of the end goal – good patient-care experience (Laureate Education, 2009). Many studies have linked team performance and productivity to workplace relational environment. As Di Fabio et al., (2016) noted, it is important for a health care organization to create an environment that fosters healthy, collaborative relationships between employees. This opens a space where constructive feedback can be shared, and employees can feel comfortable asking questions and learning from one another in order to advance a common goal: the best possible patient outcomes.

Additionally, nurses’ Code of Ethics (ANA, 2019) emphasizes that nurses create and sustain healthy workplaces and foster an atmosphere of dignity and respect. According to the nurses’ code, nurses should strive to create a “culture of civility and kindness,” treating each individual in the clinical setting with dignity and respect. This stretches beyond just patients and families to co-workers, managers and other health care professionals. It is every nurses’ obligation to promote conditions conducive to maintaining delivery of safe, quality health care.

One instance where I experienced incivility at work was when one of the staff members threatened to slash my car tires in the parking lot. This person believed that I deliberately selected a difficult group of patients for them when I was assigning patients at the beginning of the shift. Usually, patient acuity is taken into consideration when making an assignment. However, when a particular patient load becomes too heavy for any single nurse, the patient load is redistributed among the team to accommodate such changes in acuity.

The nurse that made the threat told other staff who kept the information secrete until a someone overheard the conversation in the breakroom and reported it to my boss. My unit manger took the matter seriously and called for a unit emergency meeting. He reiterated the organization’s violence prevention climate and zero-tolerance policy. The unit leaders also put in place incentives for anyone who comes forward to report threats of violence of any staff towards colleagues. This really assured me that my organization is very supportive to ensure I conduct my work safely without fear of harassment or bullying. It has been noted that workplace violence of nurse towards colleagues is on the increase in United States (Whitman, 2016), and it could lead to poor job outcomes. Leaders have to be vigilante in preventing toxic work environment.

References

American Nurses Association (ANA), (2019). The nurse’s role in addressing discrimination: Protecting and promoting inclusive strategies in practice settings, policy, and advocacy. The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 24(3).

Clark, C. M. (2015). Conversations to inspire and promote a more civil workplace. American Nurse Today, 10(11), 18-23. Retrieved from https://www.americannursetoday.com/wp-content/uplo...

Di Fabio, A., Giannini, M., Loscalzo, Y., Palazzeschi, L., Bucci, O., Guazzini, A., & Gori, A.(2016). The Challenge of Fostering Healthy Organizations: An Empirical Study on the Role of Workplace Relational Civility in Acceptance of Change and Well-Being. Fontiers in Psychology, 7. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01748

Whitman, E. (2016). Frequent violence in the ED doesn’t have to be part of the job. Modern Healthcare, 46(39), 28. Retrieved from https://search-ebscohost-com.ezp.waldenulibrary.or...

Will paste the negatives of my workplace, but as you could see in the discussion bullying and staffs forming cliques negatively impact feeling safe at work.

Please note the research theory/concept articles sighted to support improving organization health has to be within last 5years

My worksheet assessment result of my organization as follows:

The workplace assessment worksheet reveals several high scores and low scores. The scores between 1-5. 1-3 is low, 4-5 is high. I have 3 main high scores of 4, then 3 main low scores of 2.

High score

Members of the organization “live” by a shared vision and mission based on trust, respect, and collegiality.
Communication at all levels of the organization is transparent, direct, and respectful.
Members of the organization use effective conflict- resolution skills and address disagreements in a respectful and responsible manner

Low score:

There are sufficient opportunities for promotion and career advancement.
There is an emphasis on employee wellness and self-care
The organization attracts and retains the “best and the brightest.”

These would be needed in suggesting for improvement in my health care organization.

Answer preview
Clark Healthy Workplace Inventory by Clark (2015) has been a resourceful tool that helped me uncover potential problems affecting civility at my workplace. From my evaluation, the results revealed that my work environment had a good climate since the total tallied to 76 points. The regular seminars and training workshops that the organization holds for all the senior leaders and nurses helped in the achievement…

(1300 words)