Code Green Nursing Case Study

Code Green: Money-Driven Hospitals and the Dismantling of Nursing, written by Dana Beth Weinberg, reveals the story of the merging of two hospitals in 1996, the Beth Israel and the New England Deaconess, to form a unified Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC). Code Green identifies many hardships present at BIDMC, such as: changes in the hospital industry, merging of two dissimilar nursing models, dismantling of nursing, power struggle, unsafe patient care, and restructuring strategies (Weinberg, 2003). As a result of rising health care costs and large financial losses for BIDMC, nursing administration created a cost saving plan consisting of cutting staff. Nurses quickly began to feel the effects as patient loads increased and care was often cut short to perform other duties (Weinberg, 2003). Shortly after the merger, nurses complained about declining patient care which hospital administration saw as resistance to change; however, nurses were concerned about lack of time to evaluate and monitor patients, understand and plan for their needs, and provide basic physical care (Weinberg, 2003). The situation I chose to focus …show more content…
It is fundamental to acknowledge that micro and macro systems are at play here. Although micro systems are the building blocks of macro systems, the macro system ultimately implements changes that affect the entire organization (Huber, 2006). Another important aspect to consider is how the employees react to change and conflict. Nurses did not practice their right to form a union or go on strike, but did act with resistance and even gave up their own personal comfort (Weinberg, 2003). The BIDMC staff evidently lacked leadership in Chapter 6 and would have benefited from having a leader who would empower others to help achieve organizational goals (Clark, 2009). Furthermore, the conflict between nurses and administration was never