Exercise 6-1

From your communications (calls, memos, etc.), follow up on complaints or problems. Help resolve them.

Exercise 6-2
Have a group of internal and external customers meet with you to discuss communication and in-formation problems. Listen to them. Guide them to good solutions. Facilitate action.

Exercise 6-3
The following exercises may be done individually or as a group. You may want to work with a group of your peers.
Case Study: You are Ms. Carrie Platt. You have been director of nursing at Mason General Hospital for PA years. Mason General is a 500-bed general hospital in a metropolitan area, serving a population of 700,000. The city has four other hospitals and a University Medical Center. A local ADN nursing program is affiliated with your hospital. Today is Monday, March 20. During the past week, on Thursday, March 16, and Friday, March 17, you were away from the hospital to conduct a 2-day workshop. It is 8 A.M. and you have just arrived at the hospital. You must leave the hospital at 8:50 A.M. to be at the airport at 9:10 A.M. There has been an unexpected death in the family and you will be gone the entire week. You notice that the in-basket contains several items. You should make decisions about these things before leaving.

INSTRUCTIONS: Three decision-making exercises appear on the following pages. Each exer¬cise is composed of a memorandum or other medium and a decision worksheet format. Use the worksheet format to list ideas for action and arrive at a decision. If the information given lacks essential details, make any assumptions necessary. Possible examples of decisions include the following:
1. Take immediate action and state what the action is.
2. Delegate the action to another person and state who the person is.
3. Postpone the action; state to what time.
4. Other course; please specify.

A. MEMORANDUM

TO: Ms. Platt SUBJECT: Poor charting of I&O

FROM: Kay Campbell, Nurse Manager-5 N Date: March 17

The I&O record on Mrs. East in 517 is incomplete for evening and night shifts for her post¬operative period. She went into shock in the recovery room and is in renal failure. Dr. Blake is extremely upset about the lack of thorough charting of I&O. One of the evening aides heard Mr. East call his lawyer about the possibility of a lawsuit. We thought you needed to be aware of this situation.