Downsizing in Healthcare Discussion
Main Question
At a local hospital, a decision was made recently to downsize the nursing staff. The local television station sent a reporter and camera crew to interview the administrator regarding the impact of this action on patient care. After 20 minutes of filming the interview, the reporter left. That evening, a 15-second segment of the interview was shown that left an unfavorable impression regarding the impact on quality. The administrator wondered what went wrong. Explain how more control could have been used to send out the message about the downsizing.
Note: A reply of 450 words required for below student post. students must support their assertions with at least 2 peer reviewed citation. one course text citation, and one biblical principle. Should be in APA format.
Student response:
At a local hospital, a decision was made recently to downsize the nursing staff. The local television station sent a reporter and a camera crew to interview the administrator regarding the impact of this decision concerning patient care. After 20 mins of filming, the reporter left. That evening, a 15-second segment of the interview was shown that left an unfavorable impression regarding the impact on quality. The administrator wondered what went wrong.
Advertisement plays a significant role to improve the sales and earnings of a firm; not only for this, and to secure the firm’s market share and capture the new avenues of the market as well as new consumers under competitive circumstances (Sasiganth & Prabakaran, 2018). According to economics theory, the advertisement cost is known as ‘selling cost’, which is essential to the upward shift of the demand curve of a firm or industry under the various environments of market conditions (Sasiganth & Prabakaran, 2018).
In this situation, the administrator should have taken more control over the situation and only worded the message in a positive light when discussing the downsizing. Several factors can contribute to effective communication. Successful communication with a target depends on the effectiveness of the major components of communication (Berkowitz, 2017).
The major components of communication are the sender, which can be a person or company who wants to communicate a message, the receiver, the target of the communication, the process of encoding, or developing the message, the and message, which is what is to be communicated, the channel by which the message is sent, the process of decoding, or interpreting the message encoded by the sender, the element of noise, which includes external factors that affect how the message is interpreted, and feedback which provides the sender with an assessment of the effectiveness of the communication between sender and receiver (Berkowitz, 2017, p. 414).
Messages are the use of symbols or words that senders use to transmit communication. Messages can take many forms such as two-sided or one-sided messages, comparative messages, or emotional appeals (Berkowitz, 2017). Healthcare institutions direct communications toward current and prospective patients in many ways, typically selecting one or more established methods from the discipline of marketing (Elrod & Fortenberry, Jr, 2020). The administrator should have utilized two-sided messaging. Two-sided messaging presents the pros and cons of the good or service being promoted, thus making it more credible than one-sided messages that only show the good qualities (Berkowitz, 2017). The administrator also should have utilized a different choice of emotional appeal during his interview. The health concern is a basic issue for most consumers and the administrators explaining the downsizing of his nursing staff could have caused unnecessary anxiety and fear.
The bible speaks on effective communication in Ephesians 4:29 which reads, “Let no corrupting table come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear” (Ephesians 4:29, English Standard Version, 2022). This effective communication is so important as it does not broadcast the wrong message to the crowd as the reporter did.
References
Berkowitz, E. (2017). Essentials of health care marketing (4th ed.). Jones & Barlett Learning.
Elrod, J., & Fortenberry, Jr, J. (2020). Sales promotion in health and medicine: using incentives to stimulate patient interest and attention. BMC Health Services Research, 20(1), 820. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-020-05601-y
