Question

Exercise 15-1

Analyze the last poor decision made by a group of which you were a member.

what do you think contributed to the group's poor decision?

Did the group think of alternative possibilities?

Did the group move too quickly through any of the development stages?

If yes, did this cause a lack of cooperation or poor communication?  

Answer 1

Being a Charge nurse, I was responsible for imparting the information about any new policy or protocol adopted within the hospital setting. This also makes me a part of the almost every group that decides for implemention of policies among the staff. Usually before starting any new policy or protocol we were issued a memorandam which was circulated among the staff of whole unit. But one day nothing as such happened which created a huge chaos among staff, doctors, pharmacist, administrators and patients.

One of the such decision was to apply the electronic prescription for medication.Although the decision of implementing an electronic prescription was good by the way that was adopted to inform its application to clinicians and nurses was not correct. This was definately caused by the lack of knowledge about communicating policies and protocols. Its also the result of the bossy nature of the employer who thinks that every staff is liable to follow the protocols whatever and whenever invented. They are not aware of the consequences or the obstacles that would be created due to the miscommunication or lack of distribution of appropriate knowledge about the electronic prescription.

Even though I was a part of their group discussion but I was not given any memorandam regarding the date from which the policy would be applicable and no information was given to create awareness among the staff about this. Yes, ofcourse there was other alternatives to communicate this. The Incharges meeting would have been conducted clearly stating that from when the use of electronic prescription will be started and atleast a week earlier to that date, to educate all the staff of our unit regarding the use of new prescription. A memorandam should have been issued which would have been circulated among all the staff.

The group was very fast in applying the electronic prescription without any prior intimation to the staff. The implementation phase was speeded up before proper preparation of its advertizement and staff readiness to adopt the plan.

Yes, it resulted in lack of cooperation among the staff who became panic with the adoption of new policy without information. It created a lot of chaos among the staff of the ward and pharmacy department, when the pharmacy staff refused to supply medication without electronic prescription. It delayed the medication timing and which all made the patients insecure. It became a huge burden for me also as I had already finished collecting manual prescription for the day and all the doctors had left after the rounds. This created a lot of issues among me and doctors who were called by me to create new prescription.