Communication, Negotiation, and Conflict Resolution

Communication, Negotiation, and Conflict Resolution

Communication, Negotiation, and Conflict Resolution

Phyllis, a 72-year-old woman who developed slurred speech and weakness in her right arm and hand, was referred from her primary care provider’s office to a hospitalist for admission and evaluation of a possible TIA. Her admitting physical evaluation by the RN showed an elderly, but otherwise generally healthy patient. Phyllis’ admission lab tests were all within normal limits except for her CBC which showed a moderate degree of anemia. The hospitalist attributed this to a diet low in iron, which is not unusual among the elderly, and started her on an iron supplement during hospitalization. He also ordered a stool for occult blood because anemia can be caused by GI bleeding from ulcers and other illnesses.

Phyllis’ neurologic condition rapidly improved with anticoagulant treatment and physical therapy and she was discharged home three days after admission. The stool for occult blood test was never done by the hospital staff and went unnoticed by the discharging physician, who was different from the hospitalist who had admitted her. One of the discharge instructions from the RN for Phyllis, in addition to the use and side effects of anticoagulants taken at home, a high iron diet and iron supplements, was to contact her primary care provider for follow-up to determine the cause of the anemia. The discharging physician did not schedule an appointment with the primary care provider.

Ten days after discharge, Phyllis was admitted to the ER with severe abdominal pain, low blood pressure and a weak thread pulse. After an MRI of the abdomen, she was diagnosed with a ruptured intestinal diverticulum and major interabdominal bleeding.

She was immediately taken to surgery, where a section of her large intestine was resected and a colostomy was performed.

After reviewing her chart from her previous admission, her primary care RN asked

Phyllis if she had seen her primary care provider for the follow-up on the anemia, which may have detected the impending GI bleed and reduced the severity of the surgery. The client responded that she had called about an appointment and the office clerk had asked her if her speech and weakness were improved. After replying “yes,” the office clerk told Phyllis that all she needed to do was to keep her next routinely scheduled appointment in two months. The records from the recent hospitalization had not been reviewed by anyone at the office, and the primary care provider was not aware of the patient’s anemia that had been identified in the hospital.

Questions

• As with most patient errors, there was a chain of events that led up to the final result.

List the chain of events involved with the client’s case.

• Who was primarily responsible for causing the poor outcome in this case?
• If an RN Patient Safety Officer was reviewing this case, what sentinel events would he or she identify as needing risk reduction policies?
• What would you do to correct the events that lead to the poor outcome for Phyllis?
• What are the ethical issues involved in this case?

You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.

ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS

Discussion Questions (DQ)

Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.

Weekly Participation

Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.

APA Format and Writing Quality

Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.

Use of Direct Quotes

I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.
As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.

LopesWrite Policy

For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.

Late Policy

The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading. Communication, Negotiation, and Conflict Resolution

Communication

Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me:
Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours. Communication, Negotiation, and Conflict Resolution