Crisis Response at a Nashville Hospital

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By: Doug Bedell

Crisis management is especially challenging in a hospital setting, where rules of patient privacy and expectations of effective treatment apply. The Nashville Ledger provides a gripping story on how St. Thomas Hospital there has dealt with a meningitis crisis that wasn't of its making. An outside pharmacy supplied its outpatient neurosurgery center with tainted steroids that made the hospital the focus of a full-blown crisis.

The hospital's web homepage has an evolving report on the crisis. "It is important to know that this type of meningitis is severe," says a fact sheet posted there. Be candid about what occurred and empathize with the victims and the public. The hospital seems to be following those prime crisis rules effectively.

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About the Author

Doug Bedell has a background in journalism and PR and is the proprietor of Resource Relations in Central PA, which focuses on organizational communication, crisis communication, and social media. His blog, “Beetles Beat,” can be found at www.ResourceRelations.com. On Twitter, he’s DougBeetle.

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