Wk 3 – Conflict Management and Collaboration due Monday, 3/8
Assignment Content
Consider the following scenario:
The patient access staff at an internal medicine practice
are discussing a significant trend of no-show and canceled appointments. One
receptionist stated that she was told by the coordinator to never schedule
patients who call for same day appointments unless it is an emergency, such as
medication reactions, so patients would value their appointments and discourage
them from not showing up or canceling. The coordinator also indicated that the
change was approved by the CEO. A receptionist became emotional and stated,
“This is not right. We are here to help patients. Your plan does not seem
to be working, and I think we should try something else.”
The coordinator then asked the staff how the patient recall
list and the confirmation of appointments were managed. At this point, another
receptionist indicated she thought the patient contact software was not working
correctly. It was displaying confirmation icons for scheduled patients, but a
few patients called to confirm their appointments on their own. She said,
“We need to do something about this now and stop talking about it. I
reported my suspicion several times to management but nothing was checked. I
think patients calling to confirm their appointments is proof that the software
does not work correctly.”
The coordinator continued to ignore the direct statements of
the staff. Instead, she suggested she would study the relationship between
patient gender, age, payer, and date appointments were set to determine if
there were any patterns. “It’s about time you become involved in the
solution,” a scheduler said. “Okay,” the coordinator said,
“I am trying to solve this dilemma. We will accomplish nothing by
complaining.” The first receptionist replied, “We will never solve
the problem if you do not process our input.”
The coordinator smiled politely and nodded in agreement. In
addition, everyone agreed that the data she would study could be helpful as a
starting point. The coordinator further indicated she would have IT investigate
issues with the patient contact software. A few days later, the coordinator met
with all of the staff and shared her findings. Her finding revealed there was
no relationship between date scheduled and canceled appointments or no-shows.
She also indicated that IT found 893 patient portal messages unopened. The
messages included requests to reschedule and text replies to cancel.
The group developed a consensus to follow the original
scheduling protocol, which was patients are scheduled on a first call basis and
the artificial barrier of two weeks was terminated. The coordinator accepted
responsibility for the lack of follow-up on patient messages, but then assigned
another scheduler the daily task of checking and responding to messages. The
coordinator thanked everyone for their feedback, ideas, and support. She
quipped, “Emotions are okay. Passion should be evident in all of us every
day.”
Write a 350- to 700-word paper in which you:
Describe the type of conflict illustrated in the scenario.
Identify strategies the manager could use to resolve the
conflict between the team members to create a supportive climate again.
Explain how the defensive climate created by the conflict
will affect the workplace relationship between team members.
Explain how the manager can measure the performance of the
team. How can he or she determine if they are progressing or meeting their
objectives?
Cite your resources and format your paper according in to
APA guidelines.
Submit your assignment.
Resources
Center for Writing Excellence
Reference and Citation Generator
Grammar and Writing Guides
Copyright 2019 by University of Phoenix. All rights
reserved.
Last Completed Projects
| topic title | academic level | Writer | delivered |
|---|