Nursing Capstone
In order to successfully complete a nursing program, it is important to have nursing practice experience at a well-established as well as recognized medical institution that offers an opportunity to implement theoretical nursing skills learnt at learning institutions (Antrobous and Kitson, 1999). Nursing leadership is a vital role in the nursing workforce so as to effectively provide evidence based and client centered care and staff empowerment. Being a nurse team leader is a necessity to the nursing profession that leads to growth and empowerment. After all, nursing responsibilities are rapidly transforming and it is important to be updated to the current and standard requirements of the nursing leadership practice.
My practice experience program took place at Vitas Hospice located at San Francisco, Bay; the state of California. I selected this location following the population’s diversity and the reputation of offering excellent services to families and patients. The Hospice is well established, headquartered in Miami, Florida and operates over 50 other sister stations spread across the United States (Anonymous, 2013). The organization is classified as one of the largest providers of end life care. Since its inception in 1978, the organization has enjoyed dynamic growth to the capacity of employing over 8.000 nursing professionals, who care for terminally ill patients either at residential facilities, nursing homes, inpatient hospice and patient’s homes. I was located at the institution’s team manager department a position that was appropriate for the implementation of my management skills.
At my department, I got to learn that the team manager is the leader of the patient care whose main function is to supervise, coordinate and evaluate the other different components of the interdisciplinary team. As a team manager in practice, I had the responsibility of assuring patients and their families that there would be continuity of care from the time of admission to liberation or period of bereavement. I got the opportunity to serve as an advocate and coordinator of other health care providers and social services located within the community and are involved the care of the team’s patients (Harris & Roussel, 2010). During certain occasion, I assumed the responsibility of maintaining patient records from admission through to release or transfer to bereavement. Furthermore, I had the opportunity to act as a mentor and resource for the staff regarding clinical issues, team problem solving, documentation and appropriate customer service behavior. Finally, I had to oversee volunteer and staff schedules and equally distributing the workload to ensure each member of the staff is able to meet his or her overall productivity expectations.
My rationale for choosing the team manager experience at the hospice facility. I would eventually like to reach this position as I continue to work for this institution. My decision to work at Vitas Hospice follows my desire to take care of people who have life restraining illnesses for instance cancer, HIV/AIDS, kidney and heart disease and seem to have lost hope in life. I derive my sense of satisfaction from seeing these patients being relieved of pain, experience reduced anxiety and also get to experience emotional and spiritual support. The Organization itself has maintained a good reputation of taking care of patients hence the capacity to grow. I therefore, like working in such a successful organization that enables me to further develop my professional capacity as a team manager (Sanford, 2013).
While participating in my practice and aiming to be a successful professional nurse, it is significant to have goals so that every activity that we engage in leads me towards attaining my goals. As a team manager in practice, I had the chance to utilize both intra and inter communication skills and collaboration with other employees so as to ensure delivery of evidence based and client centered care (Melnyk & Fineout-Overholt, 2011). According to my analysis, the interdisciplinary team meetings proved to be the best strategy towards achieving client centered and evidence based care. This result from the platform of sharing different good ideas and the best alternative selected for implementation. In most cases, decisions made following the set decision making process turns out to be successful rather than individual made decisions. My goal during my placement is to commit to lifelong learning to ensure both personal and professional success. To achieve my goal, I have been surveying for the best university in order to enroll for a master degree program in nursing and get to develop my nursing leadership skills. It is important to associate with my colleagues both at school and at the institution so as to share experience and get to learn of what direction to or not to follow based on people’s success stories.
In conclusion, I have noted that while at the institution, it is required of the employee to display full time commitment since it is quite a task to correlate between time and energy needed to ensure success of the nursing program. Practicing nursing leadership at Vitas Hospice is important to offer high quality health care using advanced education acquired at school so as to achieve the main goal of engaging in continuing education. My being located at Vitas also allows for a revelation of a different perspective of the private and public sectors of the clinical practice (Porter-O'Grady & Malloch, 2013). Overall it is important to have nursing skills to ensure best quality patient outcomes.
References
Anonymous. (2013). Hospice in California. Retrieved from http://www.vitas.com/Aboutus/Locations/California/tabid/183/Default.aspx on 25/ 10/2013.
Antrobous, S. and Kitson, A. (1999). Nursing Leadership: Influencing and Shaping Health Policy abd Nursing Practice. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 29(3). Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10210474 on 26/10/2013.
Harris, J. L., & Roussel, L. (2010). Initiating and sustaining the clinical nurse leader role: A practical guide. Sudbury, Mass: Jones and Bartlett Publishers.
Melnyk, B. M., & Fineout-Overholt, E. (2011). Evidence-based practice in nursing & healthcare: A guide to best practice. Philadelphia: Wolters Kluwer/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
Porter-O'Grady, T., & Malloch, K. (2013). Leadership in nursing practice: Changing the landscape of healthcare. Burlington, Mass: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Sanford, K. (2013). Nurse to Nurse: Nursing Management. Overview of nursing leadership. Retrieved from http://www.mhprofessional.com/downloads/products/0071601538/knodel_ch01_p001-018.pdf on 25/10/2013.
