Impact of Nursing Leadership on Patient Care
Introduction
Management and leadership are distinct and interconnected concepts that govern the organizational aspects of planning, organizing, and monitoring the provision of service. Effective management requires ideal leadership qualities; these aspects develop a shared sense of mission that helps achieve the organizational goals while minimizing any organization, political, and resource barrier (Kotter, 1996).
Nursing leadership and management are primary and integral aspects of the provision of innovative, quality, and cost-efficient patient care. In particular, nursing leadership and management encompass a wide range of leadership qualities including delivering clinical care, enhancing patient care coordination, as well as boosting quality improvement and safety in the health care system.
This paper explains precisely the relevance of nurse leadership and management in the healthcare system. Primarily, it highlights some important aspects that are involved in enhancing nursing leadership and management. Next, the paper describes a range of leadership qualities that are recognized in the provision of effective healthcare based in the context of International and New Zealand report. The paper winds up by analyzing how positive nurse leadership and management influence the delivery of quality health services. In essence, the section describes the importance of leadership and management and how it impacts on Patient Care.
Nursing leadership and management are powerful organization systems for shaping various health policies both at the health systems levels and globally. Nursing leadership has been incorporated in government agencies, healthcare regulatory bodies, and health advocacy groups and departments. As the international health systems advocate for the provision of innovative, quality, and cost-efficient patient care, the nursing leadership has been recognized as the most influential factor in shaping the healthcare organizations to ensure the realization of required patient care (Shariff, 2014).
In particular, nursing leadership has a broad knowledge of the societal, economic, and political aspects influencing the healthcare system. Also, they are in a position to identify and reform various cultural, societal and financial barriers facing different levels of the healthcare system. Additionally, the nurse leaders have a pool of understanding of the health research as well as the education systems which are important in the current healthcare systems. They are equipped with knowledge on health care education and its relationship with the practice of healthcare research.
Most importantly, nurse leaders operating at this level of the health system are well-informed with the perspectives and values of their nursing profession; thus, they are influential contributors of patient-centred health care delivery (Machell, Gough, & Steward, 2009). With this professional and environmental knowledge, they are well placed in advocating for ideal policies and models of care at the nursing unit and in the wider health care. All these aspects of nursing leadership work together to boost quality improvement, patient care coordination, as well as delivering clinical care and safety in the health care system.
Nursing Leadership and Management Qualities and its Impacts on Patient Care
Based on International and New Zealand literature, nursing leadership strategies and qualities significantly influence the delivery of health services and patient care improvement. These qualities are required for providing ideal cultures that promote safe, high quality and compassionate patient care. This section analyzes some of the crucial qualities of nursing leadership at all levels of health care system.
Staff Engagement and Satisfaction
The level of staff engagement in making major decisions that affect their welfare determines the overall delivery of service. The international literature data suggests that where the nursing leadership stipulates well-laid procedures of staff engagement and emotional capacity to care one another, there are reduced and declining cases of patient death. High-quality patient care is also experienced when the nursing leadership observes a high level of staff satisfaction coupled with integrated, coherent, and supportive people management practices. Thus, for a healthcare care organization to achieve quality patient care, leaders must create a positive environment that incorporates staff engagement and satisfactions platforms.
Learning, Innovation, and Quality Improvement
The collapse of Staffordshire NHS Agency advocated for culture change in health care organizations. The leadership had to stipulate strong emphasis based on learning, innovation and quality improvement as the key elements required to revive healthcare performance (West et al., 1992). Besides, they had to adopt a culture of ethical learning to ensure that needs of the patients were fulfilled. In effect, the leadership had to incorporate innovations aspects with strong emphasis on transparency, accountability. This action would ensure that all information on the quality of healthcare and safety of patients was made accessible to every health unit and sector in the service.
Clear Objectives
Strategic Narrative and Compelling Visions
Leaders in best healthcare organizations focus on strategic narrative and vision geared towards high quality and compassionate health care. According to Dixon-Woods et al. (2013), these aspects serve as the core purpose and priority of an efficient nursing organization. On the same note, the message that is passed by leaders must prioritize actions based visions to achieve the intended results. A strategic narrative and prioritized vision create a mechanism to monitor, measure, reinforce, and reward the working staffs, which influences the delivery of services to the patient.
Team Working
Apparently, follow-up data and report intended to assess the existence of essential elements of teamwork shows that only about 40% of healthcare staffs work as a team (Walsworth‐Bell et al., 1992). Analysis of such organizations has revealed extreme cases of staff harassment, high levels of errors, staff absenteeism, which have translated to high patient mortality rate. Contrasting reports from NHS where teamwork was highly upheld (91%) revealed that high reduction in such vices.
Therefore, as the co-morbidity becomes highly common and complexity of health care intensifies, the nursing leadership must uphold teamwork as a crucial contributor to healthcare quality. Leaders must ensure that all departments of the healthcare organization work closely together and even integrate the wider health care system to ensure the provision of quality healthcare. Essential elements of teamwork should include team objectives, regular meetings, and interdependent working.
How Positive Nursing Leadership and Management Impact on Patient Care
Nursing leadership is an integral part of the provision of effective nursing care. Fundamentally, it is highly recognized in the implementation of systematic and goal prioritized interventions, which aims to promote the health conditions and comfort of the patient. Since nurses are high involved in the provision of essential care, their role in the nursing leadership and management system is clearly manifested. Nurses motivate and coordinate various medical care teams and patient care to ensure support and well- being of the patient and their family (James, 2010).
As their careers progress, they take their role of leadership within the health care organizations as well as beyond the nursing domain or even the entire health care system. They conduct healthcare research and education needed in all health care settings and management. In this regards, Nurse Leadership is essential for various reasons; thus, their contribution should always be fully recognized and understood. This section analyzes the importance of nursing leadership in the health care system and how it impacts on patient care.
Coordinating Patient Outcomes and Safety
The provision of safety for the patients is a vital requirement in every health care organization. Nursing leadership has an essential role in promoting positive patient outcomes as well as promoting the high-quality patient care and safety. It coordinates the patient care system, medication management, infection control, assistance with daily living activities, and general social support. Notably, patient outcome and their safety are greatly influenced by other health care providers ranging from the nursing unit manager to the national healthcare sector.
A positive leadership formulates best care practices that ensure efficient interaction of these health care systems. According to Wong et al. (2013), a strong leadership style is directly linked with patient outcomes, patient safety, and the entire range of clinical settings. For instance, strong leadership is directly correlated with reduced rates of pneumonia, urinary tract infections, and brain hemorrhage (Capuano, Bokovoy, Hitchings, & Houser, 2005). On the same note, effective leadership is linked with low rates of patient falls and medication errors (Capuano et al., 2005)
Positive Work Environment
The scope in which the nurses experience empowerment depends, to a greater extent, on the nature and behaviour of nursing leadership; in particular, positive leadership behaviours instil healthy transformational practices that create practical and empowering work conditions (Laschinger et al., 2012). Research have pointed that efficient transformational and nurse empowering environment is translated into enhanced patient care and patient-based healthcare provision.
Employ and Retain Appropriate Nursing Workforce
The retention of a highly skilled workforce is critical to the healthcare system. The nursing leadership ensures that the workforce is highly skilled and qualified, which have an impact on patient outcomes. Primarily, appropriate staffing relates directly to the quality of healthcare provided and this, in turn, influences the patient care and recovery. In particular, the quality of the workforce influences other behaviours in the workplace including access to professional skills, organizational culture, interpersonal interaction, and lateral regulation over nursing activities. All these aspects influence the overall experience and outcome of patients.
Most importantly, effective leadership influence staff retention and movement in the healthcare system. All these aspects influence the overall experience and outcome of patients. Most importantly, effective leadership influence staff retention and movement in the healthcare system. As well, this impact on the overall cohesion in the staff team and also influence the continuous existence of patient care and outcomes (Smith et al., 2009).
Financial Performance
A strong and efficient nursing leadership impacts on overall patient care regarding its financial performance. In all health systems, patient oriented services take the largest cost share. Therefore, the nursing leadership is required to formulate realistic financial approaches and decisions without compromising the quality of patient care (Ribelin, 2003). A stable financial system that upholds accountability and transparency can access quality medical facilities to its patients. Besides, a sound nursing leadership both at the unit and national levels leads to an enhanced sense on financial goals ownership within the nursing teams. This creates staff satisfaction and improved motivation among healthcare workforce, which results in patient care and service delivery (Ribelin, 2003).
Conclusion
Nursing leadership and management are fundamental aspects in the provision of innovative, quality, and cost-effective care. In essence, these aspects consist of a broad range of leadership ideas needed in the delivery of patient care, enhancing patient care coordination among staff, as well as boosting quality improvement and safety in the health care system.
Since nursing leadership is an integral part in the provision of quality nursing care, their role should always be fully recognized and understood. Nursing leadership is involved in recruiting and retaining an appropriate nursing workforce, coordinating patient outcomes and safety, creating a positive working environment, and promoting financial performance. These roles influence the overall healthcare performance and outcome of patients
Nursing leadership needs to be adaptable and possesses ideal qualities towards the realization of its goals. These qualities encompass inspiring visions prioritized at all health care levels, aligned and clear objectives in the organization of the nursing care systems and departments. Also, quality leadership advocate for the supportive environment and staff involvement, efficient working teams, and innovative, learning, and quality improvement geared in the delivery of effective medical care to the patients.
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