Quality improvement and patient satisfaction, and magnet designation.

In this assignment, you will be writing a 1,000-1,250-word essay describing the differing approaches of nursing leaders and managers to issues in practice. To complete this assignment, do the following:

1. Select an issue from the following list: nursing shortage and nurse turnover, nurse staffing ratios, unit closures, and restructuring, use of contract employees (i.e., registry and travel nurses), continuous quality improvement and patient satisfaction, and magnet designation.
2. Compare and contrast how you would expect nursing leaders and managers to approach your selected issue. Support your rationale by using the theories, principles, skills, and roles of the leader versus manager described in your readings.
3. Identify the approach that best fits your personal and professional philosophy of nursing and explain why the approach is suited to your personal leadership style.
4. Use at least two references other than your text and those provided in the course.

                                                Rubrics

 Benchmark – Effective Approaches in Leadership and Management

Effective Approaches in Leadership Management

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Effective Approaches in Leadership Management

Quality Improvement and Patient Satisfaction, and Magnet Designation

“Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out” (Stephen Covey). Leadership style is a leader’s behavioral approach to influencing, motivating, and directing their followers. A leadership style determines how leaders implement plans and strategies to accomplish given objectives while accounting for stakeholder expectations and the well-being and soundness of their team. There are three major approaches of theories to the study of leadership: the traits or psychological approach, the behavioral approach, and the situational or contingency approach. Leadership is central to all aspects of the nursing role, from managing the delivery of high-quality care to acting as a role model for best practice. Moral forms of leadership, such as ethical, authentic, and servant leadership, have seen a surge in interest in the 21^st century (Lemoine et al., 2019). The proliferation of morally based leadership approaches has resulted in theoretical confusion and empirical overlap that mirror substantive concerns with the more prominent leadership domain. The democratic leadership style is the most effective as it encourages everyone to participate in all processes, share their opinions, and know that one will hear them and it also encourages an employee to be engaged as they know one will hear their feedback. This essay will discuss the issue of the nursing shortage and nurse turnover, the approach of nurse shortage and nurse turnover by nurse leaders and managers, and identify the approach that best fits one’s professional nursing philosophy.

The Issues of Nursing Shortage and Nurse Turnover

At the moment, there is a critical shortage of registered nurses being experienced. Nursing services are in high demand, which seems to exceed the supply, where significant challenges are accruing to hospital administrators as a result. The turnover in nursing has resulted in numerous negative influences on the nurses who have remained in the profession. This has resulted in decreased cohesiveness among the existing units, decreased work satisfaction, increased burden on existing employees, and reduced patient care quality. The nurse turnover rate brings additional costs to relevant facilities in terms of increased costs in hiring, placing, selecting, recruiting, and training new personnel (Yun & Yu, 2021). Various factors contribute to the overall nursing turnover, including scheduled flexibility, clinical staff competency, poor leadership and management skills, work-related stress, the need for recognition, and an aging workforce. The demand for healthcare services is targeted to rise even further due to the aging population. A high percentage of baby boomers are reaching retirement age, and their healthcare need is intensifying. If the shortage of nursing continues, this will deprive the population of quality care as a result. Need for nurse leaders and managers to develop solutions for the shortage and turnover issues is recommended.

The Approach to the Issues of Nursing Shortage and Nurse Turnover by Nurse Leaders and Managers

Nurse Manager

A nurse manager ensures that everything functions as intended regardless of whether one is managing a division, unit or service line. As a result, a nurse manager has the responsibilities of quality improvement, patient care planning, goal setting, budgeting, and quality improvement (Maphumulo & Bhengu, 2019). They are also responsible for overseeing staff schedules, professional growth, and performance. Nurse managers can use their role to minimize nursing turnover experienced in the nursing industry, and can be achieved by ensuring they deliver reasonable job satisfaction to nurses working under them. A nurse manager should ensure that there is flexibility to ensure that nurses do not feel overburdened when allocating tasks. A nurse manager should also possess adequate skills in communication, critical thinking, guidance, coaching, and strategy (Warshawsky et al., 2020). This can ensure that directives given to nurses are clearly understood and fit the relevant organizational objectives, and it may result in nurses doing the appropriate, hence fulfilling their scope and turnover related to competency will reduce significantly hence helping to eradicate the issue of the nursing shortage. Nurse managers can also employ the system approach theory, which can work well in tackling the issue at hand. This theory can help the manager organize all the interrelated parts of the organization to ensure smooth operations. All subsystems operating efficiently make everyone happy as they are not overburdened by inefficiency from other areas, and there is an increase in cohesiveness, and it maximizes nurse satisfaction, resulting in an increased retention rate.

Nurse Leader

A nurse leader focuses more on spearheading transformation, setting standards, and influencing and inspiring the team, and the roles are more overseeing quality, policy setting and ensuring patient and staff satisfaction. A nurse leader can easily use a policy-setting role to improve the satisfaction nurses derive from the workplace (Drury et al., 2023). This ensures that policies are brought forward to enhance a favourable working environment. The satisfaction that employees get from such aspects motivates them to remain in the profession for a long time, reducing turnover tendencies. A nurse leader must demonstrate emotional intelligence, critical thinking, communication, professional socialization, mentorship, decision-making, and team-building skills (Buchanan & Huczynski, 2019). Having such skills makes it possible for the nurse leader to have a personal touch with the nurses. They can view them as humans and not just resources. This is something that helps their development due to the aspects that are being transferred from the leader. It helps to create a sense of belonging since there is a favourable working environment, reducing turnover rates. A leader who can motivate employees will come in handy in reducing turnover.  Motivation helps employees to see that they can handle any situation that comes their way.

The Approach that Best Fits One’s Professional Nursing Philosophy

The approach one holds high in dealing with the issue of a nurse shortage and turnover creates a favourable workplace environment. Most of the reasons that have increased nurses turnover are lack of satisfaction at the workplace. A conducive workplace environment enhances a supportive culture that helps to foster growth for both individuals and the organization. Such an environment also helps to prevent negative consequences like hostility, stress, unhappiness, team conflict, and fears of dismissal (Schwepker et al., 2021). These can quickly bring aspects like anxiety, insomnia, and depression among nurses, reducing their competence levels and resulting in a turnover. A positive workplace environment will give nurses more pride since they believe in the facility at hand. This will work to reduce turnover and encourage even more people to join the profession since they will see how nurses enjoy their work based on the environment they are subjected to.

Conclusion

The nursing shortage and turnover can be solved by recruiting more nurses for different institutions. For this to happen, there will be a need for a maximum number of students to take nursing courses to supplement the workforce and reduce the inherent shortage. As a result, there will be a need for increased nursing education funding. Students can be funded through varied loans, grants, and scholarships. A nurse manager ensures that everything functions as intended regardless of whether one is managing a division, unit or service line and as a result, a nurse manager has the responsibilities of quality improvement, patient care planning, goal setting, budgeting, and quality improvement. A nurse leader focuses more on spearheading transformation, setting standards, and influencing and inspiring the team, and the roles are more overseeing quality, policy setting and ensuring patient and staff satisfaction. The approach one holds high in dealing with the issue of a nurse shortage and turnover creates a favourable workplace environment, and most of the reasons that have increased nurse’s turnover are lack of satisfaction at the workplace.

References

Buchanan, D. A., & Huczynski, A. A. (2019). Organizational behaviour. Pearson UK.

Drury, A., Sulosaari, V., Sharp, L., Ullgren, H., de Munter, J., & Oldenmenger, W. (2023). The future of cancer nursing in Europe: Addressing professional issues in education, research, policy and practice. European Journal of Oncology Nursing, 102271. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejon.2023.102271

Lemoine, G. J., Hartnell, C. A., & Leroy, H. (2019). Taking stock of moral approaches to leadership: An integrative review of ethical, authentic, and servant leadership. Academy of Management Annals, 13(1), 148-187. https://doi.org/10.5465/annals.2016.0121

Maphumulo, W. T., & Bhengu, B. R. (2019). Challenges of quality improvement in the healthcare of South Africa post-apartheid: A critical review. Curationis, 42(1), 1-9.

Schwepker, C. H., Valentine, S. R., Giacalone, R. A., & Promislo, M. (2021). Good barrels yield healthy apples: organizational ethics as a mechanism for mitigating work-related stress and promoting employee well-being. Journal of Business Ethics, 174, 143-159. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-020-04562-w

Warshawsky, N. E., Caramanica, L., & Cramer, E. (2020). Organizational support for nurse manager role transition and onboarding: strategies for success. JONA: The Journal of Nursing Administration, 50(5), 254-260.

Yun, M. R., & Yu, B. (2021). Strategies for reducing hospital nurse turnover in South Korea: Nurses’ perceptions and suggestions. Journal of Nursing Management, 29(5), 1256-1262. https://doi.org/10.1111/jonm.13264

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