The Power of Crisis

Some #Organizational Habits are so ingrained into the culture that the only way for a reform is through a crisis. Any good leaders know that a crisis is the best way to create habits that can #replace the existing ones. In 2000, Rhode Island Hospital cultivates destructive organizational habits where it harbors enmity between its doctors and nurses. Nurses where treated unfairly and without respect by some doctors which caused series of grave operational accidents. One doctor insisted to proceed with the skull surgery for blood cloth, disregarding the nurse’s insistence for confirmation with furious reprimand for his authority, the doctor committed the location of the blood cloth to memory and ended up operating on the wrong side that later caused the patients death. Not long after, similar incident happended with a child being operated on the wrong part of the child’s mouth during a cleft palate surgery. Another report from the hospital was a drill bit was left inside a man’s head.¹

The Rhode Island Hospital paid expensive fines for their surgeons humiliating mistakes and failed leadership among its doctors and nurses. The bad publicity and the series of accidents were the jolt that gave them the wake up call to take some action and make drastic changes. Some doctors were fired, executives were replaced, and enrolled nurses and doctors through intensive training programs that taught teamwork and mutual respect among each other.

In 2009, Rhode Island Hospital experienced no wrong-site errors since its new safety procedures were fully implemented. The hospital earned a Beacon award, the most prestigious recognition of critical care nursing, and honors from the American College of Surgeons for the quality of cancer care.