As a new initiative in the urology procedural unit I recently started working for, management had devised a new procedural flow study with the aim to improve time management for nurses and overall waiting time for patients in the urology department. The current waiting times for patients were about one to one and a half hours to be seen by a physician and three to four hours’ total visit time. About three quarters of the nurses on my team had been working in the unit for about twenty-years plus. Many of them were not pleased with the proposed unit flow study and feared that the study results will demand unnecessary unit changes regarding the way procedural rooms were set up and run by nurses.
Management was equally …show more content…
We appreciated the fact that the senior nurses did not want the new nurses to experience burn-out and feelings of being overwhelmed at work. Next, we expressed our concerns about not following the new regulations mandated by the unit manager. We communicated to the senior nurses that although the majority of the nursing team did not agree with the new regulations, we still had to give a try. Then, we identified objectives that we would like see happening in the unit. We emphasized that all nurses in the unit concurred that improving waiting times and overall visit times for patients was a goal that we all agreed upon. We also pointed out the outcome we were expecting after implementing the change in the unit flow. If the change in the unit flow failed to improve waiting times for patients, then the senior nurses could present their argument to management that the new regulations did not meet the management’s expectations. But, if the new unit flow proved to decreased waiting times for our patients and the new unit flow proved to be beneficial to our patients, then we would have found a better way to provide care for our patient population. Finally, we reached an understanding that we will implement the new unit flow for one month and we will continuously monitor check-in, pre-procedure, procedure, post-procedure, and check-out times for individual and total waiting times. We sought confirmation and asked the senior nurses if they felt comfortable trying out the new unit flow for a month. The senior nurses agreed to implement the new unit flow for one month starting as of the beginning of the next week. At the end of the day we communicated to management our start date for the new unit flow plan.
Applying the A-E-I-O-U conflict management model, proved to be beneficial to resolve our unit dilemma and helped senior and new nurses alike to