Case Study: Conflict Resolution Strategies for Nurse Managers

This case study explores a workplace conflict scenario in a hospital setting, involving two nurses in the emergency unit. The conflict arose over the administration of opioids to a patient with chronic heart disease. The nurse manager intervened to resolve the conflict, implementing strategies such as face-to-face interviews and transformational leadership with consideration of interprofessional collaboration to address the issue. The case study highlights the importance of effective conflict resolution skills for nurse managers in maintaining a positive work environment and ensuring patient safety. The solution provides a detailed analysis of the conflict, the manager's actions, and relevant references.

Running head: Workplace conflict
Workplace conflict
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author’s name

Workplace conflict
Workplace conflict is inevitable among nurses and a common phenomenon occurring
across all clinical settings, globally. Conflict among nurses is associated with a compromised
patient’s safety, a reduced work satisfaction and an increasing turnover. Some of the causes of
conflict among nurses include miscommunication, a passive or aggressive communication, a
lateral or vertical aggression, clique behavior and other disappointing and undesirable activities
and action (Moeta & du Rand, 2019). Nurse Managers or leaders play an important role in
managing conflicts effectively. Thus, the nurse leader or the manger must possess the required
skill set to resolve the issues and get insight of the problems through proper communication and
conflict resolving skills (Jerng et al., 2017).
I am a nurse manager at a local hospital. In my absence, two registered nurse in the
emergency unit had a conflict related to the administration of opioid to manage the severe pain of
a particular patient admitted that morning due to chronic heart disease. The nurse allocated to
look after the patient wanted to help the patient control his pain with opioid and thus, instruct the
other nurse to bring it for him. However, the other nurse who was also presence at the
department, denied to do so until the physician arrives. Both the unit nurses has a conflict
regarding this that eventually delayed the patient’s care. Following my arrival when it was
brought to my notice, I called each one of them and conducted a face to face interview. The
strategies that I implemented to resolve the conflict include transformational leadership with
consideration of interprofessional collaboration (Brewer et al., 2016).

Workplace conflict
References
Brewer, M. L., Flavell, H. L., Trede, F., & Smith, M. (2016). A scoping review to understand
“leadership” in interprofessional education and practice. Journal of Interprofessional
Care, 30(4), 408-415.
Jerng, J. S., Huang, S. F., Liang, H. W., Chen, L. C., Lin, C. K., Huang, H. F., ... & Sun, J. S.
(2017). Workplace interpersonal conflicts among the healthcare workers: Retrospective
exploration from the institutional incident reporting system of a university-affiliated
medical center. PloS one, 12(2).
Moeta, M. E., & du Rand, S. M. (2019). Use of scenarios to explore conflict management
practices of nurse unit managers in public hospitals. Curationis, 42(1), 1-7.