A One-Team approach to crisis management: a hospital success story during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

: In the later months of 2019, coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) began to spread across the globe. The pandemic quickly became a challenge for healthcare facilities to respond to and hospitals were expected to lose billions. Subsequently, many hospitals implemented mandatory furloughs, layoffs or pay cuts amongst their clinical staffs. Previous research has demonstrated it is important for organizational members to pull together and act as a team during a crisis situation. A team approach offers a number of organizational benefits however; most of the literature on teamwork is focused at the micro level (e.g., unit level) and does not address the importance of an organizational level team. We propose the importance of creating an organizational level team (e.g., one, which spans throughout the organization) as being key to successfully mitigating organizational crises. We offer an applied social identity approach as a theoretical lens to understand this phenomenon. We offer insight into one hospital, which dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic based on an organizational wide team. We explain the steps the Cleveland Clinic took in preparation for and during the pandemic. These steps allowed the Clinic to avoid many of the negative consequences other hospitals suffered, such layoffs, furloughs, and potential long-term organizational workforce problems. 5