Our Cancer Center’s medical hematology/oncology was recently split between the two local hospitals and two new centers were created. Prior to the split we had a big town hall with both institutions. Then we all had to apply for positions and wait to find out where we were hired. Once we were hired they had virtual town halls to keep us up to date on the progress. Now that we have been part of the organization for a year, we hold monthly staff meetings. There are also huddles for individual teams. We went through a period of time where we had distrust as the organization did not ask for input when developing the new center. Now as I look back those decisions were made early on before hiring staff and needed to be made using data from other cancer centers within the organization. As I look back on this experience it seems they used the Traditional Problem solving process to make the original decisions when developing the program. (Marquis & Huston, 2020) One of the more recent decisions the staff have been asked to help with is from our healthcare foundation. There is a fund which we can contribute to as staff and then each quarter we are asked to vote on which project will get funded. Departments apply for funding and then those proposals are shared with the staff and whoever gets the highest vote gets the funding that quarter. As a person who donates to that fund, I find it refreshing that they ask and honor our opinions. In a pandemic where a lot of decisions are taken away from the bedside this allows the staff to be part of process. It is known that stress in the work place can affect decision making, causing nurses to be hyper vigilant when making bedside decision. (Denizsever et al., 2021) Having been a manager in previous roles it is a balancing act to hear staffs voice, then look at the organization and then communicate back to the staff why or why not that suggestion will be put into effect.
