Module 3 Professional Development
For starters, it would be very important for the nurses who are a part of the team to be able to identify the key characteristics of the Hmong people who are migrating into the new communities that the current nursing team is handling. This would make a lot of future steps and decision making instances a lot easier. Basically, the Hmong people, is a general term used to pertain to people who live, or in this case, have lived in the mountainous regions of Vietnam, China, Thailand, and Laos. In terms of ethnicity, the Hmong people can be traced back to the Miao ethnic group which was originally from Southern China. The migration of the Hmong people towards other communities and countries is not exactly a new thing as this trend has in fact started since the early 18th century mainly because of the political unrest and the lack of access to economic opportunities in the mountains.
As with any changes that come in managing a team, a dramatic change in current events, or a shift in the trends that have continuously guided the policies and principles of a nursing team, a strategic plan must be created and followed. In this case, the main cause of the development of a new strategic plan would be the change in the demographic composition of the population whose nursing, medical, and healthcare needs and expectations the nursing team must cater to. Therefore, the strategic plan must focus on the changes to the status quo.
For example, the public health agency being managed may have been so used to addressing cases of low back pain because of the sheer number of patients complaining about it in the country prior to the arrival of the migrant Hmong people’s arrival. The strategic plan must therefore focus on identifying the medical and health conditions (that may be of coursed be addressed by nursing care and practice), that the change in the client demographic composition may have brought. Of course, that step (i.e. the identification step) must be followed up by appropriate steps aimed at equipping the members of the public health agency with the knowledge and perspective on how to effectively manage and treat (through nursing practice), the newly identified medical and health conditions. Most likely, the newly identified medical and health conditions are ones that are prevalent among the Hmong people that migrated into the country.
Basically, these are the two areas where I as the public health agency manager, and the other individuals involved in the organization can be most influential in: identifying the new health and medical conditions that may have to be addressed; and equipping the other members of the organization with the knowledge and perspective on how to deal with the newly identified health and medical problems.
Below is a list of 10 strategies that are aimed at assisting the public health agency manager plan for the new client population
Establish a baseline measure for all the patients so that new changes in trend can be easily tracked
Ensure the health of the original members of the client population
Educate the original members of the client population about the change in the client demographic composition and the effects that such may bring
Perform a regular environmental assessment
Perform a regular demographic assessment
Organize strategic and operational goals around the pillars of service, quality, service, people, cost, and growth
Promote quality metrics and compliance with the established health and medical care programs, policies, and services
Communicate all the strategic plans to all the stakeholders of the public health agency
Identify and anticipate for all the possible trend changes that may come as a result of the demographic shift
Equip the public health agency members with the proper knowledge on how to deal with such changes
Other statistics that may help in the planning may include the prevalence rates of certain health and medical conditions among the migrating Hmong families, the age range of the people, among others. In the future, patients in the country are expected to have easier and freer access to nursing services and this in general would have a positive influence on the plans laid out in anticipation for the demographic composition and or changes so far.
Using Change Strategies to Increase Compliance Learning Exercise 8.3
This is a case of Sam Little a patient diagnosed with Type I diabetes who has been prescribed to undergo regular blood glucose monitoring and sliding scale insulin administration as well as insulin pump administration as a health and medical approach in order to prevent the worsening of his current condition. Type I DM (Diabetes Mellitus) is a serious medical condition that requires constant monitoring and attention, as well as patient compliance and cooperation. In this case, Sam appears to be unwilling to comply with the rather tedious procedural prescriptions for his condition, saying that he does not really want to be pressured to do things that he does not want to do.
In addressing and preventing the worsening of Type I DM patients’ condition, it is important to religious follow the prescribed protocols. So, regardless of Sam’s present non-compliance, for him to follow the protocols must still be the end goal of the nurse in charge. Because he said he does not want to get pressured, one can already rule out the use of power-coercive strategies to make Sam comply with the treatment protocols because these strategies make use of the application of power by legitimate authority, economic sanctions or political clout of the change agent, or in this case by the nurse . The same is in fact true for normative-re-educative strategies because they make use of peer and social pressure in encouraging a person to comply with something.
The safest bet in Sam’s case would be the rational-empirical strategies. This works by educating Sam about the benefits of following the treatment protocol prescribed to him and the consequences of not religiously following them. By using this approach, he basically gains the freedom on whether to follow the strategies or not without the feeling of being pressured. This would be a good start in solving all the associated problems with Sam’s non-compliance with the prescribed treatment protocols. I honestly believe though that other strategies may work as well even though Sam does not want to get pressured. However, in this case, there are still some merits in following what the patient wishes to do. If worse comes to worst however, and Sam’s condition deteriorates dramatically, the power-coercive approach and or strategies may be necessary. Basically, everyone in the nursing home and or team must be involved in this change management effort. After all, patients in a home health agency typically get assigned to different nurses and so as a result there might be some inconsistencies with the way how Sam would be treated so the safest option would be to involve all staff nurses in the change management plan. Basically, the effort that the staff nurses must undertake should focus on educating Sam about the benefits of complying with the treatment protocol prescribed to him and the consequences of not doing so. That way, he can exercise his free will and should anything bad happen to him, he would know that he was a part of it; although that would be an unlikely case because it is a part of the nurses’ responsibility to make sure that that would not happen.
Avoiding Crises Learning Exercise 9.10
Every professional and licensed nurse knows that their job does not stop after they meet and treat their patients. There are other jobs and responsibilities that they have to fill in as nurses; part of such include updating the patients’ charts, ensuring that the medication schedules have been executed and updated; and completing other things such as the intake and output totals, among others. These are so called administrative duties of a nurse and not being able to complete them or comply with policies that may be associated with them often leads to a crisis and part of avoiding crisis includes ensuring that all duties and responsibilities that if not completed would most likely result to a conflict have been addressed and filled in. In this case, even though the 8 hour shift of the concerned person has already ended, he may have to go for overtime so that he or she can finish the work required before leaving. Now about the nurse who is about to take the post for the next shift, he may simply be asked to wait for a few minutes up to an hour so that the end of shift reports can be written properly. Three alternatives to deal with the problem as it already exists would be to do an overtime shift and finish everything before living; ask for the help of the arriving shift to finish the reports and other unfinished duties; or he could simply ask the supervisor or the head nurse to permit the person to go home and just finish the duties the following day. However, this situation could have been prevented had the person in charge finished everything before the end of his or her shift.
The best way to manage this kind of crisis is to simply look for a way how to access another computer because computers can pretty much do the same things let alone help someone complete a midterm essay. One way how this kind of scenario could have been prevented is to have the midterm essay finished earlier, when the mother was not yet using the home computer, which apparently is the only computer at home, for doing the family’s taxes. That way, there would have been no need to look for another computer which would be used to complete the midterm essay due the following day. Three alternatives in this case would be to go to computer shop and rent a computer; borrow a notebook computer from a friend; or simply wait for the mother to finish doing the family’s taxes and write the essay using the home computer.
This is a kind of complicated scenario. The best way to manage this is would be to try to recover the term paper file from the crashed hard drive by bringing it to a specialist or a computer technician. This crisis could have been easily prevented had the owner of the computer taken the initiative to save a backup for his term paper perhaps via cloud storage or other storage devices. The alternatives in this crisis would be to recover the file from the crashed hard drive; to try to have the computer fixed; or to start writing a new term paper altogether.
This is a simple crisis that can be easily solved by asking for help from other nurses who are on shift. The waste of time which was worth 1 hour could have been prevented had the person in charge asked for help immediately after the second or third failed attempt to restart the line. However, since the incident already happened, the following three alternatives may be considered: calling other on shift nurses for assistance, try to reconnect the line again even after several failed attempts; or if an IV line is not really necessary, just go back at it after lunch time although this may be a risky alternative to even consider.
References
Conway, P. (2009). Nursing Strategy: What's your plan? Journal of Nursing Management, 25-29.
Marquis, B., & Huston, C. (2012). Leadership Roles and Management Functions in Nursing. Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
