Communication is of paramount importance amongst workers of Tennessee Healthcare, like any other healthcare facility, given that it involves the interaction of individuals to carry out its mandate. Breakdown of communication may manifest through the failure of carrying out consultations while undertaking important decisions that refer to the changing of roles, jobs, and the way these jobs are carried out.
Tennessee Healthcare experienced a problem of communication amongst the managers, employees, and patients and this may have manifested through failing to consult amongst them in choosing the new computer information system. Technology innovation decisions may have required that employers consult with the employees to make sure that their interests and inputs are put into consideration. In fact, some innovations may involve laying off workers or the need to train or retraining of the existing workers and therefore the more the employees are involved, the more successful such an implementation could become. This is because some implementation may lead to laying off workers. In addition, major technological innovation could lead to the restructuring of the way employee carry out their duties, and in this case, the way information was manually or otherwise collected, recorded, analyzed, and communicated, or other issues pertaining to the handling of feedback information. Tennessee Healthcare would have saved on the employee morale if they would have involved employees in this program because their participation would be boosted by letting them feel that they are part and parcel of the program implementation. This would boost or retain their morale to work. No wonder issues realized within the organization in the current status include low employee morale.
Another problem with the failure to involve employees is that the program already faces resistance because they think it is being forced by the management or it is a “managerial thing” and therefore issues of leadership must be taken care of. The management should represent the majority of the employees so as to make sure that the employees do not feel separated from the management, which would also contribute to causing them to resist the program implementation.
The resultant of the above-mentioned problems would be low production and delivery of poor quality service to patients. The staff managers, all staff, and the management should move on to offer intervention to the problem by holding meetings for example weekly; creating workgroups for solving various problems every month; offering training for the employees on the current information system, need for a change of the system, and its benefits. Each department must be concerned in making sure that there is improved communication amongst the employees working thereby establishing relationships and improving them through interactions of employees and the management. This can be carried out by holding meetings on a weekly basis. In addition, workgroups assigned to solve different questions each week can have different leaders every week to make sure that different parties have the chance to know the employees. The managers should also encourage departmental meetings to make sure that people from various departments interact also.