Question

Sara Lang is a charge nurse at Sunny Nursing Home and has worked under the same president, Lisa Davis, for five years. In fact, the two have become good friends. They frequently socialize after hours. Rick Walters, Director of Nursing, is a capable person who has been working there for three years. Four nurses (Anna, Barbara, Charles, and Dan) report directly to Sara.

Anna, one of the nurses, was having personal difficulties. She asked Sara if she could change her work schedule from the usual 8-hour shift of 4 days with 3 consecutive days off to 16-hour shifts for two days and 5 consecutive days off. Sara thought that was not a problem and told Anna that she would enter that information into the computerized scheduling system, and that she would tell Lisa Davis of the change, since they were getting together for a drink after work.

Barbara overheard the conversation between Sara and Anna, and she immediately went to see Rick Walters and complained that Anna was getting preferential treatment and she wanted the same schedule. Rick, who always wanted to make sure that the nursing staff were happy and got along, approved Barbara’s change in schedule. He made this change through the computerized schedule and did not tell anyone else. Barbara, who is good friends with Charles, told him of her new schedule. Charles, who works closely with Chief of Staff, Dr. Goodman, told Dr. Goodman of the change in Barbara’s schedule and asked Dr. Goodman to change his. Dr. Goodman thought it was a good idea and e-mailed Charles’ new schedule to his assistant, Susan Stevens, to enter it into the scheduling system.

On the next Monday morning, changes were implemented to Anna’s, Barbara’s, and Charles’ schedules. Yet, no one had discussed these changes with anyone else. When the schedule was printed out and posted, it showed that Anna, Barbara, and Charles were all off for 5 days that week from Monday to Friday and all three began work on Saturday. In the meantime, the only nurse left working was Dan.

Discussion Questions:

1. What are the different forms of communication flow taking place?
2. What changes should have been implemented?
3. What should be done now?

Answer 1

1. What are the different forms of communication flow taking place?

· Upward communication occurs between supervisors and subordinates (Rick and Barbara ; Charles and Dr. Goodman)

· Downward communication primarily involves passing on information from supervisors to subordinates (Dr. Goodman and Susan Stevens )

· Horizontal flow is from manager to manager or from co-worker to co-worker (Between Sara and Anna )

2. What changes should have been implemented?

Diagonal flow is especially useful in health care for efficient communication and coordination .This should be implemented

3. What should be done now?

The corresponding heads should discuss with those particular nurses and the necessity to change their schedule.Based on the genuinity of the reason , the duties should be alloted