Transforming Nursing Leadership and Practice Order Instructions: Identify a leadership or practice issue. briefly outline the issue you have chosen to discuss and justify your choice.
Identify a journal that may be interested in publishing a literature review about your chosen issue and provide a rationale for your choice of journal. Clearly, describe the steps that are required in the process of developing a literature review on your topic.
Use the following structure as a guide:
1.Introduction :
Introduce the leadership issue or area of practice change, justify your choice of topic and provide an overview of your paper.
2.Background :
Make a clear statement about the relevance and importance of your topic to nursing.
Using scholarly literature, provide background information about your topic and challenges associated with your leadership or practice issue.
3.Choice of journal and process of developing a scholarly paper:
Using the information and reading from your learning modules for guidance, provide a comprehensive rationale for your choice of the journal and discuss the step involved in developing a paper for publication.
Transforming Nursing Leadership and Practice Sample Answer
Transforming Nursing Leadership
Introduction
The nursing profession exposes the employee to a host of leadership and management issues that they need to be aware of and take into consideration from time to time. Though the nursing role is often protected from interference by persons in leadership positions, the minimal aspects of human resource management such as performance evaluation and welfare issues call for leadership in nursing practice. Every nurse often gets urgent calls that they are not prepared for psychologically and at times the outcome of a medical trial or treatment does not turn out as expected and as professionals, it is devastating (Brown, 2016). Leadership and management ensure that the nurses are well taken care of and remunerated so that they can offer the optimal results expected of them. However necessary the medical services are, a nurse needs to lead a normal life so as to distinguish the mindset at work from the mindset at home.
Management and hospital leadership ensure that there are free transitions between nursing shifts and that the nursing staff is indeed adequate. A lot can go wrong and indeed, a lot does go wrong from time to time when shift management is not properly handled. It is often nurses that bear the burden of responsibility when it comes to the care of patients. However, it is often a concern when the health of these nurses is at risk. Managers and hospital leaders thus need to guarantee that there are no circumstances that will inconvenience the nurse or the patient in the course of their treatment (Anderson, Malone, Shanahan & Manning, 2015). It is the role of management, for instance, to assess the psychological and physical state of nurses from time to time to guarantee that their health status allows them to work. This is because; the caregiver role that many nurses play hardly allows them to demonstrate any emotion, problem or weakness to their patients. Management is aware of this and has to consistently ensure that the welfare of the nurses is guaranteed. This paper is going to discuss the inefficiencies in nursing leadership and their impact on the nursing working environment.
Inefficiencies in Nursing Leadership and management
Nursing leadership is not always effective. There are concerns about the ability of nursing leaders to make accurate ethical and efficacy decisions from time to time. Such concerns arise when trauma situations arise and a myriad of emergency cases are admitted at the hospital. The ability of the nurse leader to maintain their composure and manage the human resource in the wake of potentially life-threatening situations is almost always realized among the most unnerved of nurses. For instance, when emergency victims are rushed to the hospital institution, there are concerns over the level of injury they are exposed to and the nature of care they require, including aspects such as prepping for surgery and getting the right equipment and personnel at the right time and place. Such issues at times mark the difference between life and death for the nursing staff. Leadership must thus make very first and accurate decisions to save a life, which is a paramount duty in the medical profession.
Exposure to contamination is a concern in the nursing environment. Management in the nursing profession needs to create an environment where nurses can freely treat patients without risking being infected. The provision of safety equipment at all times must thus never be compromised. Critical working equipment such as gloves and gas masks go a long way to protect the medical staff in a hospital especially where contagious airborne diseases are diagnosed (Malone, 2016). Contamination has been experienced in previous treatment trials such as the SARS and Swine Flu viruses. The need for care by the treatment professionals often trounces the risks they face at the working environment. Management and proper leadership of nurses thus bridge the gap between the call to serve mankind and the exposure to risk. In the need to control disease spread, nurses often expose themselves to hazards that are potentially lethal to their health. Management needs to protect these employees from exposing themselves to such dangers since this exposure to diseases is a concern they have to face every now and then.
Contaminated equipment is also another concern hospital leadership and management has to deal with. In many countries across the world, there are very few hospitals and insufficient medical personnel to handle patients. This is the reason why hospital beds are at times shared and some of the basic equipment that needs to be applied by one patient ends up being used by several. There may also be insufficient sanitary equipment to clean medical equipment after use. Direct contact with patients in these circumstances is often inevitable rather than accidental. Nurses end up contacting diseases and basically becoming exposed to harsh working conditions as a result. For some of these professionals, working in these environments is not a matter of choice but rather a duty and a necessary evil they have to endure. This is why it is necessary to ensure that nurses are not exposed to such working conditions.
Regulations to minimize exposure
In many nations across the world, there is a regulatory mechanism or framework to ensure that medical professionals are in situations where they can perform at their optimal. It is up to the hospital leadership and management to ensure that these regulations are followed and met with optimal standard actualization. However, demanding the assignment is; the hospital leadership is required to offer them basic sanitary provisions to prevent exposure to contamination and contracting infectious viruses from the patients. It is a basic concern that the person offering the medical skills and services in an institution be protected from the medical hazards within their environment (Andrew & Mansour, 2014). Regulation such as minimal hygiene standards in a hospital is very critical in the event the hospital is facing health concerns from their own sanitation concerns. It is important to ensure that hospitals that do not comply with basic requirements are indicted so that they do not expose the rest of society to these health issues. Hospitals need to be establishments where diseases are treated; not contracted.
The United States Department of Health works with the Occupational Safety and Health Association (OSHA) to guarantee health standards within working environments and the safety of nursing and other medical professionals. This makes it possible for nursing professionals to maintain a fairly healthy living style despite being in near-exposure situations every day. The organization also runs periodic medical tests on the nurses to assess their psychological situation from time to time. This is in order to guarantee the safety of the patients they treat from time to time. It is vital that while there are measures to check whether the nurse is in their right state of mind; more effort is made towards ensuring that they are given the right counseling and encouragement as they perform their noble assignments (Barr & Welch, 2012).
Changes to improve nurse employee safety
Lack of proper leadership in a hospital environment can be very detrimental to medical personnel. For instance, the recent Ebola virus spread in West Africa demonstrated how medical conditions and the state of healthcare safety in some countries are very wanting. Due to the lack of proper leadership among local government health ministries, many nurses were infected with the Ebola virus. Some even, unfortunately, succumbed to it. This is often the concern when the government cannot have proper management of medical agencies involved to guarantee proper safety of the nurses. The government thus exposed most of these nurses to the health hazards they faced due to their incompetent leadership (Kear & Ulrich, 2015). There are many other situations where the exposure of nurses to medical risk situations is a need that the organizations need to take care of yet fail to do so. There need to be more standards and the guarantee of the same to ensure that medical professionals are always guaranteed of their safety while at work.
Leaders in the nursing profession need to be at the forefront of realizing better ways to improve common practices. Medical professionals can also give their input regarding the necessary changes that can be done in order to guarantee better working environments. A lot of research is done in the medical profession concerning how to treat new infections and curb the spread of bacteria and viruses. However, little is done to confront the issue of occupational safety (Coben & Weeks, 2014). It is vital that there be research units dedicated to the institution of realizing better healthcare across the globe. Better healthcare can, however, be guaranteed if the health of the healthcare giver; the nurse is not at risk. This is why research in such fields is a concern that needs to be addressed from time to time and ensured where it lacks.
Transforming Nursing Leadership and Practice Conclusion
While technology has boosted medical practice extensively over the last few decades, the issue of nursing leadership is still a concern. Medical professionals often face situations where their health risk is a concern. Management needs to be aware of these concerns and treat nurses like employees who deserve a lot of care since their contribution to society is indeed very significant. There is a need to have nurses and other persons in the profession protected from contamination while at work. It is also necessary to protect the patients in hospitals from unhygienic exposure (Kangasniemi, Vaismoradi, Jasper & Turunen, 2013). This can only be done if the hospital leadership is aggressive in making the hospital environment better. Organizations that handle healthcare regulation have to be on the forefront to guarantee that health and safety in hospitals and other medical care facilities guaranteed.
Transforming Nursing Leadership and Practice References
Anderson, J., Malone, L., Shanahan, K., & Manning, J. (2015). Nursing bedside clinical handover – an integrated review of issues and tools. Journal Of Clinical Nursing, 24(5/6), 662-671.
Andrew, S., & Mansour, M. (2014). Safeguarding in medication administration: understanding pre-registration nursing students’ survey response to patient safety and peer reporting issues. Journal Of Nursing Management, 22(3), 311-321.
Barr, J., & Welch, A. (2012). Keeping nurse researchers safe: workplace health and safety issues. Journal Of Advanced Nursing,68(7), 1538-1545.
Brown, G. (2016). Averting Malpractice Issues in Today’s Nursing Practice. ABNF Journal, 27(2), 25-27.
Coben, D., & Weeks, K. (2014). Meeting the mathematical demands of the safety-critical workplace: medication dosage calculation problem-solving for nursing. Educational Studies In Mathematics, 86(2), 253-270.
Kangasniemi, M., Vaismoradi, M., Jasper, M., & Turunen, H. (2013). Ethical issues in patient safety: Implications for nursing management. Nursing Ethics, 20(8), 904-916.
Kear, T., & Ulrich, B. (2015). Patient Safety and Patient Safety Culture in Nephrology Nurse Practice Settings: Issues, Solutions, and Best Practices. Nephrology Nursing Journal, 42(2), 113-123.
Malone, B. R. (2016). Professional Issues. Intimidating Behavior Among Healthcare Workers Is Still Jeopardizing Medication Safety.Nephrology Nursing Journal, 43(2), 157-159
