Building Harmony: An Approach to Conflict Management in Healthcare Settings

Course description

Healthcare environments are complex, dynamic and outcome focused. As a result, relationships between patients and providers or among health professionals may be susceptible to misunderstanding. Individuals and institutions are impacted by unresolved conflict in a variety of ways. Clinicians and administrators benefit from acquiring a common approach to addressing potential conflict situations in a pro-active and solutions-focused manner.

Building harmony in healthcare systems begins with identification of conflict risk factors and appropriate early interventions. In this course, recurrent sources and types of conflict, including inter-professional practice, cultural collisions and ethico-legal issues, will be categorized and explored. Through case studies and discussion, learners will apply, analyze and evaluate systematic measures to prevent conflict escalation in a variety of situations.

Recognizing that patient care has largely become team-based, learners will acquire practical and constructive measures to improve cross-functional communication and collaboration. It then follows that positive inter-professional relationships will promote empathy in teamwork to support and enhance quality assurance and patient safety processes.

The course material is underpinned by ethico-legal and communications principles, and organized into a '4-zone framework' - external interfaces, internal conflict, legal regulations and cultural considerations. This approach supports individual learners in exploring and applying the concepts to a variety of healthcare contexts and environments.