Conflict management in health care sector: An Indian scenario

Pages: 153-161
Mitali Sengupta and Satyajit Chakrabarti (University of Engineering & Management, Kolkata, West Bengal)
Indraneel Mukhopadhyay (Institute of Engineering & Management, Kolkata, West Bengal)

Aspects of conflicts have been found to be pervasive in nature. The interactions of different professionals and teams lead to differences in opinion. In health care settings, these differences might be pronounced due to a variety of stressful environmental factors resulting in conflict. In most health care settings, though a few aspects of conflicts resulted in positive outcomes, most of these conflicts have negative consequences. The dismissal of all possible conflicting scenarios from health care settings will be imprudent for the managers and administrators. It is thus imperative for the different health care stakeholders to identify the key issues which are precursors of conflict. This paper reviews the different conflict types which are normally found in the health care settings, determine and pinpoint the possible conflict antecedents, associated costs and the possible mitigation strategies which could be readily used in healthcare settings. It especially focuses on the Indian scenario and attempts to cover all these aspects from the Indian viewpoint so as to design innovative, cost effective conflict management approach in healthcare settings.