A leader's encounters: lessons learned and shared.

The need for continuous improvement in the quality of patient care delivery is one of the hottest topics in health care today. In the author's view, one of the most direct routes for the improvement of quality of care is through effective relationships. In her 27-year nursing career, she has experienced a number of learning opportunities that have given her a heightened sense of interpersonal competence. Three such memorial vignettes are shared in this article.

Cultural cohesion versus collision. A model for facilitating organizational mergers.

Healthcare delivery systems are experiencing sweeping changes; acquisition and merger activities abound. These activities have the potential to greatly impact employees and their quality of work-life. The authors describe how one nursing organization in a large metropolitan teaching hospital successfully merged two separate nursing departments by dealing with the essence of these organizations' cultures. A conceptual model was developed that will facilitate future organizational field research in the areas of corporate culture and change process.