Conflict In Health Care Essay

Conflict results from real or perceived opposition to one’s values, actions, desires or general interests. Conflicts may occur internally or externally between individuals or groups; conflict within a team environment can cause frustration, and occasionally anger. However, conflict resolution can also often generate positive results for the team. Conflict management skills remain in demand; conflict may be managed successfully by reaching an agreement that satisfies the needs of both the individual(s) and the team as a whole

Also, I discuss ways to avoid and resolve conflict, how to work as a team and collaborate with other departments, and ways to improve the process. Furthermore, how interdisciplinary relationships affect my organization and the patients and families that use our health care organization will be explained herein.

Conflict will always exist when a group or team is composed with different people with different approaches and ideas. Conflict cannot be avoided and in inevitable. As nurses, it is imperative that we have conflict resolution skills to deal with our day to day encounters (Yoder-Wise,2015).

Communication and conflict resolution are two very important aspects in order for a team to function effectively. This paper will explain different strategies for effective interprofessional teamwork and collaboration in health care delivery. Furthermore, evidence-based nursing interventions for systemic change to resolve conflict resolution will be discussed. Conflict resolution and strategies to resolve communication issues are invaluable tools to know when leading team in collaboration. Leadership, additionally, is an important aspect within a team setting as well. The effects of effective and ineffective leadership on group processes will also be explored. Communication is in large the most important part of being an successful leader

There are many other ways to build an effective healthcare work group. By addressing conflict, any disagreement can become an opportunity for the team members to understand each other better. Many of these strategies and ways can be useful in opportunities and situations inside and outside of the healthcare industry.

A common goal in any healthcare organization is to provide quality healthcare to patients while maintaining well-coordinated cooperation amongst healthcare professional. Whether in a hospital, a long-term care facility or an outpatient clinic, the need for interdisciplinary teamwork remains an important asset for the profit of all involved.

During collaboration, each healthcare worker presents with their individual care activities and suggested safeguards against medical error for the client (Varpio, Hall, Lingard, & Schryer, 2008). Conflict can be created when each team member negotiates for their objectives. This is evident when there is a failure to listen as it impacts on effective inter-professional communication, as seen in case study 1, creating the potential for medical error and presenting a risk to client safety (Richardson, West, & Cuthbertson, 2010; Varpio, et al. 2008).

Conflict is pretty much inevitable when you work with others. Everyone have different viewpoints and under the right set of circumstances, those differences could pile up and escalate to conflict. How you handle that conflict determines whether it works to the team's advantage, or contributes to its disadvantage. Conflict isn't necessarily a terrible thing. Healthy and constructive conflict is a factor of high-functioning teams. Conflict arises because of the differences between people, the same differences that often make diverse teams more effective than those made up of people with similar experience. When people with varying viewpoints, experiences, skills, and opinions are tasked with a project or challenge, the combined effort can far surpass what any group of similar

What is conflict? According to Masters & Albright (2002), “Conflict exists when two or more parties disagree about something” (pg. 14). Is conflict bad? Not necessarily, conflict can be good or bad. In fact, according to Lewicki et al. a moderate amount of conflict can be productive where as too little or too much conflict can result in complacency or chaos (as cited by Almost, 2006, pg. 447). In healthcare organizations, like other organizations, conflict is an everyday occurrence. According to Thomas, “managers spend approximately 30% to 40% of their workday dealing with some form of conflict” (as cited by Haraway & Haraway, 2005, pg. 11). Conflict will exist between nurses and physicians, within a healthcare organization, and

Many years ago in the primitive age men used to work in different disciplines where the primary goal was protect their communities to survive. In that Era, farmers, hunters and fishermen formed an interdisciplinary team in the same environment to provide wellbeing to their tribes. Likewise, nowadays health care providers can collaborate in different professions to optimize patients’ outcomes and satisfaction. Interprofessional care is an essential part of the health professional collaboration to ensure quality of care. Also, students are part of this collaboration to promote interprofessional education. Even contrasting and comparing different health care professions, we can realize how benefit is working in an interdisciplinary team. Without doubt interprofessionalism must be always linked to the health care practice combining the interprofessional care with interprofessional education as well.

Conflict within interprofessional health care team collaboration has adverse implications for patient safety. Failure of staff to communicate effectively causes misunderstandings and mistakes, which have a negative impact on patients. Gilardi, Guglielmetti, and Pravettoni (2014) state that staff conflicts result in the decrease of staff’s job satisfaction and increase of turnover, which is obviously bad for health care outcomes. Coupled with clinical discrepancies, a culture of health care conflict results in faulty and occasionally incomplete exchange of information that elevates the potential of health risks and inevitable deaths.

Conflict in the workplace causes a decrease in the quality of care. Conflict creates chaos and a higher risk of poor patient care. Additionally low moral equals poor quality of care. As Sullivan stated, disruptive conflict does not follow any set of rules, and parties involved engages in activities to beat their opponent which causes angry, fear, and stress (2012).

When you think of Human Resource professionals and how their teams work together, you would assume that they have the tools to be the most cohesive team within an organization. They have the resources and education to help employees and managers tackle conflict within their own groups. Unfortunately, HR employees are so busy helping others with their issues that they overlook any conflict within their own teams. HR Leaders are in denial when conflict occurs due to the expectations that is set in place for them. Effective leaders understand that avoiding conflict does more harm than good and needs to be addressed immediately in order to prevent further chaos. Conflict Management should not be viewed as a weakness, In fact, a moderate amount of conflict is necessary for achieving optimum levels of job performance and improve workplace productivity as long as it’s handled in a constructive manner (Rahim, 2001). This is an analysis of a Human Resource team and how conflict management can affect the organizations they support.

When studying organizational management this semester I found the discussion on organizational conflict to be the most compelling. Our analysis not only gave me understanding on how destructive team conflict is present in organizations, but also in any teamwork setting. Conflict is often a recurring problem for organizations, so it is vital for leaders to understand how to regulate it. Whether we were studying organizational change, devolvement, or leadership what was common to all was the presence of conflict and its effect on an organization.

Moreover, the results of the study supported their argument that conflict can contribute to effective teamwork. The article conveys that task conflicts and relational conflicts can have a positive or negative effect on the organization depending how the approach is handled. According to Edwin Locke’s “Handbook of Principles of Organizational Behavior,” relationship conflicts are based on “personality clashes and can be detrimental to team morale and the team performance” (Weingart & Jehn, 2009, p. 327). Task conflicts can be beneficial to any organization, only if managed when collaboration between two or more individuals share values and work together towards a common goal. The findings of this study show that facing the conflict at hand improved the worker’s attitudes. The findings also suggested that team members who openly approach conflict will improve their performance. According to the article, “avoiding conflict does not mean conflict disappears; eventually, avoiding types of conflict will result in competition” among members of the team (Tjosyold, Chun, Ding, & Hu, 2003). Competition will disrupt the work environment and may not result in positive outcome for the team or the organization. According to research, competitive interaction will allow members of a team to outdo one another. This could result in negative consequences such as the team members will not utilize each