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BACKGROUND: Communication is an essential organizational process for responding to adversity. Managers are often advised to communicate frequently and redundantly during crises. Nonetheless, systematic investigation of how information receivers perceive organizational communication amid crises has remained lacking. PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to characterize features of effective internal crisis communication by examining how information-sharing processes unfolded during the initial stage of the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODOLOGY: Between June and August 2020, we conducted 55 semistructured interviews with emergency department workers practicing in a variety of roles. We analyzed interview transcripts following constructivist constant comparative methods. RESULTS: Our findings revealed that at the onset of COVID-19 pandemic response, emergency department workers struggled with immense fear and anxiety amid high uncertainty and equivocality. Frequent and redundant communication, however, resulted in information delivery and uptake problems, worsening anxiety, and interpersonal tension. These problems were ameliorated by the emergence of contextual experts who centralized and democratized communication. Centralization standardized information received across roles, work schedules, and settings while decoupling internal communication from turbulence in the environment. Democratization made information accessible in a way that all could understand. It also ensured information senders receptiveness to feedback from information receivers. Centralization and democratization together worked to reduce sensed uncertainty and equivocality, which reduced anxiety and interpersonal tension. CONCLUSION: Establishing frequent and redundant communication strategies does not necessarily address the anxiety and interpersonal tension produced by uncertainty and equivocality in crises. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: Centralization and democratization of crisis communication can reduce anxiety, improve coordination, and promote a safer workplace and patient care environment.

BackgroundPsychological safety-the belief that it is safe to speak up-is vital amid uncertainty, but its relationship to feeling heard is not well understood.PurposeThe aims of this study were (a) to measure feeling heard and (b) to assess how psychological safety and feeling heard relate to one another as well as to burnout, worsening burnout, and adaptation during uncertainty.MethodologyWe conducted a cross-sectional survey of emergency department staff and clinicians (response rate = 52%; analytic N = 241) in July 2020. The survey measured psychological safety, feeling heard, overall burnout, worsening burnout, and perceived process adaptation during the COVID-19 crisis. We assessed descriptive statistics and construct measurement properties, and we assessed relationships among the variables using generalized structural equation modeling.ResultsPsychological safety and feeling heard demonstrated acceptable measurement properties and were correlated at r = .54. Levels of feeling heard were lower on average than psychological safety. Psychological safety and feeling heard were both statistically significantly associated with lower burnout and greater process adaptation. Only psychological safety exhibited a statistically significant relationship with less worsening burnout during crisis. We found evidence that feeling heard mediates psychological safety's relationship to burnout and process adaptation.ConclusionPsychological safety is important but not sufficient for feeling heard. Feeling heard may help mitigate burnout and enable adaptation during uncertainty.Practice implicationsFor health care leaders, expanding beyond psychological safety to also establish a feeling of being heard may further reduce burnout and improve care processes.

BackgroundThe Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic generated an unprecedented volume of evolving clinical guidelines that strained existing clinical information systems and necessitated rapid innovation in emergency departments (EDs).ObjectivesOur team aimed to harness new COVID-19-related reliance on digital clinical support tools to re-envision how all clinical guidelines are stored and accessed in our ED.MethodsWe used a design-thinking approach including empathizing, defining the problem, ideating, prototyping, and testing to develop a low-cost, homegrown clinical information hub: E*Drive. To measure impact, we compared web traffic on E*Drive to our legacy cloud-based folder system and conducted a survey of end-users using a validated health technology utilization instrument.ResultsOur final product, E*Drive, is a centralized clinical information hub storing everything from clinical guidelines to discharge resources. Clinical guidelines are standardized and housed within the high-traffic E*Drive platform to increase accessibility. Since launch, E*Drive has averaged 84 unique weekly users, compared with less than one weekly user on the legacy system. We surveyed 52 clinicians for a total response rate of 47%. Prior to the E*Drive rollout, 12.5% of ED clinicians felt confident accessing clinical information on the legacy system, whereas 76.6% of ED clinicians felt they could more easily access clinical information using E*Drive.ConclusionThe COVID pandemic revealed vulnerabilities within our information dissemination system and presented an opportunity to improve clinical information delivery. Centralized web-based clinical information hubs designed around the clinician end-user experience can increase clinical guideline access in the ED.

Newly intensified use of personal protective equipment (PPE) in emergency departments presents teamwork challenges affecting the quality and safety of care at the frontlines. We conducted a qualitative study to categorize and describe barriers to teamwork posed by PPE and distancing in the emergency setting. We conducted 55 semi-structured interviews between June 2020 and August 2020 with personnel from two emergency departments serving in a variety of roles. We then performed a thematic analysis to identify and construct patterns of teamwork challenges into themes. We discovered two types of challenges to teamwork: material barriers related to wearing masks, gowns and powered air-purifying respirators, and spatial barriers implemented to conserve PPE and limit coronavirus exposure. Both material and spatial barriers resulted in disrupted communication, roles and interpersonal relationships, but they did so in unique ways. Material barriers muffled information flow, impeded team member recognition and role/task division, and reduced belonging and cohesion while increasing interpersonal strain. Spatial barriers resulted in mediated communication and added physical and emotional distance between teammates and patients. Our findings identify specific aspects of how intensified PPE use disrupts teamwork and can inform efforts to ensure care quality and safety in emergency settings as PPE use continues during and, potentially beyond, the coronavirus disease-2019 pandemic.