Essay on Lincoln Hospital: Creative Solutions Needed to Avoid Life-Threatening Conditions

Lincoln Hospital is experiencing a chain of managerial problems. The problems in the hospital require an elaborate and creative solving technique. The hospital is operating under critical conditions that create a negative impression on the patients. In the worst-case scenario, the practices in the hospital can endanger the lives of its patients. Therefore, despite incurring losses if it halts its operation for a while, it would be necessary to take this step. Instead of operating in a dangerous environment where essential component and staff is missing, the first step in problem-solving would be halting the operations and bring everyone on a round table to discuss and solve the problem. Therefore, the paper analysis and examine the contracting, diagnosis, and intervention practices in the hospital, as well as giving the most favorable approach.

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Lincoln Hospital is experiencing a series of challenges. The problems in the hospital include shortage and ineffective human resources, shortage of equipment, poor scheduling of activities, and hostile relationships amongst the staff. The issue in the hospital manifests in the quitting of the 40 percent of the OR nurses and the unavailability of the anesthesiologist. Approaching the point from a managerial standpoint the way Lincoln's president did was not the right way to go about handling the situation. The first step in the problem solving would be examining the root cause of all the issues in the hospital. It would be necessary for the president to communicate with the OR nurses left in the hospital to understand the reason why their coworkers decided to go. Although the problems started soon after the appointment of the chief of surgery, it does not necessarily mean that the problem is with the new head or his conflicting colleague.

The hostility and war between the doctors and nurses call for third party intervention. It was necessary to bring the two parties together to face and discuss the challenges that each side was facing. The hospital's president took the right initiative by bringing the leaders of the two parts together. However, Don and Mary seem to have somehow personal differences. That is why they fail to meet and address the issues on their own. They are continuously pointing fingers on each other, each of them holding on to strict minimum conditions that the president needs to meet. Don is accusing Mary of being incompetent and ignorant to the doctors' plights, while Mary, having worked with the hospital for long, seems to believe that she is untouchable. The two sides cannot conclude with this attitude without third-party intervention.

The third-party intervention approach of the hospital covers almost all the critical areas in problem-solving. The method brings together Don and Mary in an attempt to solve the issues that they are facing. Don and Mary take part in separate interviews each time before meeting to address their differences. Although the process seems to work, it may not solve the war and hostility between the doctors and the nurses. Don and Mary might solve the issue between them at a personal level, but the issues facing individual nurses and doctors would remain. In short, the process would lead to a partial solution to the problem (Cummings & Worley, 2014). Therefore, the third-party intervention has to involve part of the nurse and part of the doctors who would help explaining other challenges that Don and Mary might ignore.

Don and Mary are hostile colleagues. An attempt to bring them together to table the challenges facing the hospital would be futile. Therefore, the best way to first understand their issues to let them choose representatives from both sides to air their views. The two sides can produce for representatives. The representatives from Don's team would meet Don, talk about the issues that Don feels that need addressing in the intervention meeting. They note the key issues, add their own opinion, and then present them to the intervention teams. The same process should take place on Mary's side. The analysis of the issues from both sides then follows. The OD needs to set the grounds for the intervention. They have to ensure that issues that do not aim at solving the challenges the hospital is experiencing do not make their way into the meeting. They should address issues that challenge the wellbeing of the hospital only. Personal issues should be left out. Nevertheless, there should be no threats such as firing a person or working without another person. All the parties should be prepared to embrace and work with one another.

Third-party intervention is appropriate for the solution of the challenges in the Lincoln Hospital. The assessment component of the OD intervention helps in gathering and accumulation of information that is an essential problem-solving tool. The information gets to the management for review purposes. It also helps in getting to the next stage of OD intervention, which is the action plan stage. The intervention approach helps the organization in coming up with an efficient plan of action. As a result, the response to the problems becomes fast and easy. At this stage, the leaders in the intervention process have vast knowledge from both sides, the doctors and the nurses, and have an idea of the source of the challenges in the hospital. Various changes, such as a change in procurement, human resource, and teamwork in the hospital, become more straightforward and fast.

Evaluation, adaptation, and separation are other possible OD interventions for Lincoln Hospital. The evaluation aspect of OD intervention involves an examination of the results from the entire third-party intervention process. The evaluation for the hospital consists of the collection and analysis of the inventory metrics. The hospital is facing challenges in human resource, scheduling, and equipment availability. The third-party intervention employed in the hospital seems to focus on the human resource and partly scheduling process. The evaluation will thus help in establishing equipment shortages and their working condition. It will assist in determining the best situation control. The assessment will help in the implementation of the action plan phase of the OD intervention.

Adoption is the intervention aspect that involves the implementation and integration of the interventions into the hospital's policy. The third-party intervention results will suggest measures that aim at the problem solution. The approaches could be in the change of the organization's management practices, procurement process, staffing, among other methods. Adoption will involve the incorporation of these activities into the organization. Separation is the final stage in the third-party intervention. It consists of allowing the hospital to act on the suggested measures that would lead the problem-solving. The third allows Lincoln Hospital's president to work on the critical changes in the hospital that will help to solve the problems that the hospital goes through.

Third-party intervention in Lincoln Hospital was inevitable. The challenges that the hospital was going through requires a critical examination from an outsider's standpoint. The conflicting parties, Don and Mary, had real issues requiring essential evaluation. The two parties were also vital to the success of the business. Therefore, firing a single party would not help in the solution of the problem, but instead, make it worse. It helped in bringing the two parties together and address the issues effectively.

References

Cummings, T. G., & Worley, C. G. (2014). Organization development and change. Cengage learning. DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780199846740-0009