James Warick, director of physical plant at Southern Hospital, emailed Diane Curtis, director of nursing, informing her of a water leak in Operating Room 1, which would need to be shut down for repairs early the next morning. Curtis forwarded the message to Joanne Messing, the operating room nurse supervisor on duty for the night shift. Messing, tired from a long night’s work, handwrote a message to the nurse supervisor on the day shift to switch the 8:00 a.m. operation from Room 1 to Room 8 and taped the message onto the bulletin board. David Swanson, the day-shift nurse supervisor, arrived at 7:30 a.m. and found Dr. Roberts shouting that his patient was ready for surgery but no rooms were available because Dr. Jones had already taken Room 8.
Discussion Questions 1. What were the channels of communication used by each person?
2. Should a different channel of communication have been used instead?
3. What can be done to resolve the problem?
4. What policies should be put in place to prevent this from occurring again?