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Emergency Department: Organizational Structure And Culture

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Organizational Structure and Culture
Each organization has to have a leadership framework in place to create order and establish a chain of command to build and facilitate the goals of the organization. Not only does the organization have a structure of management in place but individual departments also have a chain of command in place to allow for smaller issues and more focused goals to be addressed at lower levels. So the structure is like a set of Russian nesting dolls, a smaller doll inside of a larger doll, inside of the largest doll; each layer builds on the other to create one whole functioning unit. "The design of the organization is intended to foster the organization's survival and success." (Sullivan, 2013, p. 12) The innermost …show more content…

The department manager is responsible for the workings of two different units, the ED and the Critical Decision Unit/Observation Unit (CDU). Senior managers are usually responsible for one unit only, so there is only one senior manager for the ED. There are five unit managers' who report to the senior manager about assigned staff members and special projects under each manager's leadership. The charge nurses are staff nurses who act in a leadership role during each shift to direct patient flow, be a resource for staff and resolve any issues that arise during work hours. This division of specialty is more in line with how Sullivan (2013) describes a function organizational theory. This structure allows for the staff to receive specialized training and have access to equipment that is used to meet the demands of the people seeking care at our …show more content…

Even within the ED, there are various subcultures that exist hand in hand; trauma nurses are different from ED pediatric nurses as an example. Sullivan (2013) explains that "Nurses form a subculture within health care environments. They share a common language, rules, rituals, dress, and have their own unstated rules. Individual units also can become subcultures." (p. 26) Each subculture offers different routine processes and actions for staff; an adult that is having abdominal pain will be treated differently than if it was a child. Pediatric nurses have wear cartoon scrub tops and have toys attached to their stethoscopes, whereas the adult nurses have a pocket full of IV catheters and saline

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