Be nice or ... what, exactly?
The Wall Street Journal's health blog reports that the Joint Commission, the group that accredits hospitals, is requiring hospitals to come up by Jan. 1 with policies dictating "unacceptable behavior" and how it will be dealt with.
This goes beyond lying/stealing/malpractice/sexual harassment to get into more day-to-day interpersonal relationships. Why? Various kinds of miscommunications are behind about 70% of "sentinel events" -- preventable serious injuries or deaths of patients, the blog says. And if, say, a doctor routinely yells at and otherwise verbally abuses nurses, the chance that a miscommunication will occur increases.
So the requirement sounds good until you realize that the Joint Commission doesn't define "unacceptable behavior" or lay out what the consequences might be for tolerating it.
It seems plausible that bad behavior of this type could lead to potentially serious miscommunications. But it's far from clear how big a problem this is, let alone what will happen to hospitals where it goes on.
