Health Law

HOSPITAL CONFLICT RESOLUTION POLICIES.

By Greg Piche'

Most hospitals today have adopted policies for dealing with disruptive conduct within the hospital setting.  Most of these policies relate to forms of harassment, intimidation and violence.  There are of course the omnipresent ?disruptive physician? policies that relate to physicians acting out in unprofessional manners like berating staff and throwing hissy fits generally.  There are many more subtle forms of conflict between hospital administration, its medical staff, its medical staff leadership and its governing body. The Joint Commission Standards have evolved with a growing focus on the resolution of conflict at all levels of a hospital organization, with the understanding that all dissension has the potential to affect patient safety and outcomes if left to fester.

Standard LD .01.03.01, requires the governing body to provide a system for resolving conflicts among individuals working within the hospital.  LD .02.04.01 requires the organization to  manage conflicts between leadership groups to protect the quality and safety of patient care.  MS .01.01.01 which becomes effective on March 31, 2011 requires hospitals to more carefully manage conflicts between the medical staff, medical staff leadership, hospital administration and a hospital?s governing board.

Effective conflict management systems require a lot more than a dusty process that is pulled from a shelf periodically to impress the Joint Commission examiners and physicians and others should be able to access the process when necessary to resolve conflicts at the earliest stage possible.  Conflicts tend to escalate over time if not pruned early.  The American Health Lawyers Association has developed a Alternative Dispute Resolution Toolkit that offers be a useful starting point for the development of an effective conflict resolution policy within a hospital or other health care facility. The toolkit offers models, principles, and conflict resolution resources.  Its ?Foundational Principals? of conflict resolution are core to any effective policy.

1. A willingness to acknowledge the existence of a conflict.
2. Open communication between the parties.
3. Dealing with conflict in an environment of mutual respect.
4. An acknowledgement and tolerance of different perspectives.
5. A commitment to fundamental fairness.
6. The education of all stakeholders about conflict management.
7. The development of a conflict management process with input from all stakeholders.
8. Holding stakeholders accountable to use the process.

http://www.healthlawyers.org/Resources/ADR/Documents/ADRToolkit.pdf

Full post as published by Healthcare Law Blog on October 18, 2010 (boomark / email).