Question

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."

• 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?

Answer 1

#. The type of conflict illustrated in the scenario is the consequence of using a autocratic leaderi style because the coordinator does not wanted to take the suggestions and feedback givenby her team members .

#. The strategies the manager could use to resolve the conflict between the team members to create a supportive climate again are :-

Do not blame anyone for the problem

Focus on the issue not personalities

Protect each party's self respect

Facilitate open and complete discussion of the issue

Give equal time to each party

Encourage the expression of both positive and negative feelings

Help develop alternative solutions

Summarize key points and plans

Later follow up on the plans and give positive reinforcement as appropriate

Facilitate further problem solving as necessary

Clarify what the disagreement is.

Establish a common goal for both parties.

Discuss ways to meet the common goal.

Determine the barriers to the common goal.

Agree on the best way to resolve the conflict.

#. In organizations with defensive climates, employees have the tendency to abstain from communicating their needs, as they become very cautious in making statements, and may have low level of motivation.

#. Measures performance by the following ways :-

Tie the team's results to the organization's goals.

Begin with the team's customers and the work process the team follows to satisfy their needs.

Measure both team and individual performance.

Shoot for verifiability. Don't try to measure everything using numbers.

Train the team to create its own measures