Recently we had our unit committee meeting and among all of the other topics that we handle it was mentioned that there has been a culture shift in our hospital, and not for the better.
We have had a lot of change recently and a lot of overcrowding. We have made many single rooms into double rooms to accommodate for the increase in census, spent many nights on diversion hoping something didn't walk in through the ER and boarding ICU patients in the ER.
I understand where the frustration is coming from however, our ER is feeling the backlash from all departments in a way we never have before. There is more attitude, yelling and meaningless reporting of things that were once handled between staff now going to managers (petty things). Our manager has said that this isn't just a couple of the units, it's all the units and of course we aren't excluded.
We have decided to start a little initiative. When we have staff in another department who are helpful, pleasant or nice we are going to give them a couple of piece of candy that have a little tag on it that says "Thank You" with room to write on the back as to why we are thankful for them.
