Communication When Bloomington Hospital Decided to Add

Communication

When Bloomington Hospital decided to add millions of dollars in debt to their balance sheet, it was all for a very good cause. The hospital Board believed that by doing so they would create a regional hospital with the resources and expertise to offer cardiovascular surgery to the surrounding community. The work provided by creating a cardiovascular unit at the hospital would initially create a number of jobs and in the long-term add stability and additional jobs with the other services spawned by creating the unit. The Board had studied the numbers, the projections and had hired consultants that were enthusiastically trumpeting the benefits of creating the unit.

Not everyone was on board with the decision to create a new unit at the hospital. Chief among the groups that were opposed to the project were the general practitioners at the hospital and the administration at the nearby University of Indiana. They, along with many others, felt that an expansion that cost millions of dollars to facilitate was not a wise decision, especially since the city of Indianapolis was a mere 50 miles distance and offered a number of opportunities for patients in need of such services. These groups believed that the results would not justify the expense.

The problem was that these groups comprised a large number of influential business, educational and medical professionals that felt that they had not been heard or listened to by the Board. They were angry at the decision to offer cardiovascular services at the hospital and the University had even threatened to build their own center to directly compete with the hospital for other services. Many of the group's members were demanding that the hospital's president, Roland Kohr be fired, and that the decision be reversed.

The hospital board was faced with a situation that would affect the lives of citizens in the community, patients, doctors and their plans to set a course that could make Bloomington Hospital a regional hospital of some repute. An array of other external problems beset the Board as well; the physicians were upset at not having a say, the local university was upset that they had not been chosen as surgical partners and some of the local companies were against the decision. Chief among all the complaints, however, seemed to be the perceived lack of communication between the hospital board and all the interested stakeholders in the decision. This lack of communication is not a problem to be taken lightly.

One recent study showed that "one of the most important principles of persuasion is that people will tend to go along with you if they believe that doing so will fulfill their personal needs" (Neal, 2010, p. 38). It was quite evident that the board, and especially the hospital's president, had not done their job. They had not communicated with the stakeholders in a way that would allow for the stakeholder's personal needs to be met. This lack of communication left everyone upset, and it is not a successful way to promote a major project such as the one the hospital board wished to accomplish.

Another study determined that "communication in most companies is not specifically controlled and does not work effectively" (Charvatova, 2009, p. 472). The mistakes made by the hospital board and president were that of non-communication. They seemed to have forgotten how to effectively communicate.

The solution? At this point the hospital has spent millions of dollars on construction for not only the new cardiovascular unit, but for other supplementary construction as well.