Patient Safety And Good Health Outcomes

The role of a nurse leader is invaluable to the performance and ultimate success of an entire nursing team whose goal is to provide excellent patient care. There are a few key characteristics that define a nursing leader. The first characteristic is one who communicates effectively and is accountable on all levels, from the patient and their family to the interdisciplinary members and senior staff. Effective communication and accountability are characteristics of an individual who

This paper aims to address and discuss about the leadership and management of the nurse leader interviewed. This experience was a great opportunity to witness first hand how a nurse leader cultivate and manage their staffs in real life setting. Moreover, it provides a great access to gain insight and knowledge about nurse leaders’ vital responsibilities and role diversities in the organizations they work with. Nurse leaders pay more specific and close attention in handling the staffs and most importantly, patient care.

Over time the health care industry has become more complex. Health care is rapidly evolving and continuing to complicate our delivery of care, which in turn has the same effect on quality of care. This steady evolution and change results in nursing shortages and an increase in the prevalence of errors being made. In hopes of preventing these errors and creating safe and high quality patient care, with the focus on new and improved ways of thinking, The Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) initiative was developed. The QSEN focuses on the following competencies: patient-centered care, quality improvement, safety, and teamwork and collaboration. Their initiatives work to prepare and develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that are necessary to make improvements in the quality and safety of health care systems (Qsen.org, 2014).

Nurse leaders are the background to the nursing care. Effective nurse leaders can promote a positive workforce and a healthy work place for other nurses. Workplace dynamics is an essential part of how each nurse functions. Nurses, being mentally and physically stressed, need to have support and guidance from a nurse leader to feel confident about performance. The impact of nursing leaders can be a positive and guiding force for the younger or more inexperienced nurse. Having strong relationships with solid leaders can instill values in the beginning stages of a newer nurses’ career. Gaining insight and core concepts from a more experienced leader can make a world of difference in the way a new nurse performs, provides patient care, and sets future goals for themselves. A newer nurse with a positive role model and nurse leader can model themselves to become a leader for future nurses.

Now, the graduate level nurse’s leadership attributes have been described in scholarly sources. Based on the documents of the American Association of College of Nursing (AACN) (2013), essentials of graduate nursing must be skilled in organizational and systems leadership role. Specifically, they are supposed to assume leadership roles in quality improvement and patient safety initiatives while working in the interprofessional team context. APN must use communication in an effective way, with regards to speaking, scholarly writing, and group interaction. Nurse leaders should also demonstrate the working knowledge of the current healthcare system and its essential components, including delivery and payment models, sites of care, roles of various stakeholders in the process of care delivery (AACN, 2013).

Leadership at times can be a complex topic to delve into and may appear to be a simple and graspable concept for a certain few. Leadership skills are not simply acquired through position, seniority, pay scale, or the amount of titles an individual holds but is a characteristic acquired or is an innate trait for the fortunate few who possess it. Leadership can be misconstrued with management; a manager “manages” the daily operations of a company’s work while a leader envisions, influences, and empowers the individuals around them.

Nurses are increasingly becoming the strong leadership in developing all aspects of health care policy and decisions. Unfortunately the shared consensus is that most nurses do not possess leadership skills adequate enough to keep up with the ever-evolving field. The IOM reports on this by stating: “Nurses at all levels need strong leadership skills to contribute to patient safety and quality of care.” (IOM, 2010 pp.223) It is felt that nurses are depicted as people who carry out

In healthcare it is very important to have strong leaders, especially in the nursing profession. A nurse leader typically uses several styles of leadership depending on the situation presented; this is known as situational leadership. It is important that the professional nurse choose the right style of leadership for any given situation to ensure their employees are performing at their highest potential. Depending on which leadership style a nurse leader uses, it can affect staff retention and the morale of the employees as well as nurse job satisfaction (Azaare & Gross, 2011.) “Nursing leaders have the responsibility to create and maintain a work environment which not only promotes positive patient outcomes but also

Cultivating the leaders of today and tomorrow will be indispensable to the execution of the impressive objectives delineated for the health service (NHS Scotland 2004). Leadership in nursing involves an amalgamation of clinical, academic, executive and political facets. Hence, there is the contingency for nurses to be leaders at the bedside, in universities, in the boardroom and in a political capacity (Gallagher and Tschudin 2010). The clinical nurse leader position is an emergent dynamism as health care endeavours to cope with the challenges of today’s intricacy and result orientation. (Gerard, Grossman and Godfrey). Nursing leadership is critical for effective practice as nurses emblematise the greatest discipline in health care (Sullivan and Garland 2010). Additionally, leadership in nursing has been established as a cost-effectual approach to enhance patient outcomes in times of constrained monetary reserves, when leaders can administer direction, impel change and embolden others (Murphy 2009).

Not all nurses go into the profession with leadership ideas. The nursing profession must produce leaders throughout the health care system. Leaders must function as workers, and administrators with leadership qualities, while still meeting their budgets and running effective units with high functioning and happy staff members. They need to trouble shoot necessary and work with the medical faculty while pleasing their staff and the administers.

Nursing leaders must apply critical thinking and analysis skills in order to find opportunities to improve gaps in care. Consequently, nurses with the ability to identify, understand, and influence opportunities for improvements while consistently achieving quality and safety goals have unlimited opportunities to exercise leadership (Grossman & Valiga, 2012). Lastly, nurses whom have the understanding of the complexity of leadership and the awareness that the leadership role is something every nurse can fulfill will lead nurses towards change and advancing health as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and Institute of Medicine (IOM) has campaigned for action while enhancing nurses’ contributions to delivering quality

Leadership may mean different things to different people, the consensus opinion of experts in this field is that leadership is using power to direct and influence activities of people to achieve set goals or targets. Nursing leadership is all about every nurse providing, facilitating and promoting the best healthcare services to client and to the public. Leadership is a shared responsibility. (CNO 2012). The nursing profession need leaders that can build the capacity of nurses through mentoring, coaching, supporting, developing the expertise and management skills of nurses to make a difference to the quality of patient care at all levels of the profession ( McIntyre & McDonald, 2014 ). At the core of every leadership either political or managerial is power and how the leader uses it. While it is practically impossible to lead without power, how the nurse leader uses this power not only determine the leadership style but also the results or outcomes of what is achieved through the process.

Nursing leadership is also one of the very important messages of the 2010 IOM report on nursing. The IOM calls to expand opportunities for nurses to lead. It advises that nurses need to be prepared and enabled as leaders in order to advance healthcare. One of the recommendations states that “expand opportunities for nurses to lead and diffuse collaborative improvement efforts” (IOM Report, 2010). In that regards, a research article (Sherman, 2011) points out that charge nurses on frontline of acute care setting are the

Nursing is a very complex career that at many times requires one to be a leader. Nurses can be leaders in formal roles and also on the unit during any given shift. Nursing is a career that truly tests the character and attributes of those who choose to enter this career. Leadership in nursing is vital in creating a successful environment for patients. According to Stichler (2006), “effective leadership is essential to transforming organizations into environments that are safe for both patients and staff” (p. 422). Therefore, it is vital that as new nurses start out his or her careers that they learn from great leaders who are already in the profession. There are several great leaders working in the field who have a plethora of

Before I started this leadership/management coarse I had no idea what qualities a good leader manager needs to hold. I had no idea a registered nurse was considered a leader/manager. Now that I have reviewed all the chapters in the Leadership Roles and Management Functions in Nursing (Marquis & Huston, 2015) I have a full understanding of how important leadership/management functions play in a nurse’s career. Chapters 12-25 describe roles and functions that are needed for a nurse to become a successful leader/manager. These chapters discussed the roles and functioning of organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling.