It is unquestionable that the larger healthcare sector is undergoing appreciable changes and reforms that require the development of sound leadership skills for healthcare professionals and more importantly, the nurses. According to Huston (2010), there are eight leadership competencies that a nurse should possess in order to optimally contribute to care provision and subsequently, gain a vantage point in terms of alignment with the future demands of nursing care. As Huston (2010) describes, “being politically smart” is one of the leadership competencies that a nurse should hone as we move to a new nursing leadership era. Being the largest healthcare workforce, nurses ought to be agents of positive change. This is essentially through advocacy and leveraging upon their unique understanding of the care provision system and numbers to influence problem solving and decision-making within and outside their organizations. Believably, there are various factors that affect healthcare provision and these factors emanate from both micro and macro environments. Examples of these factors include; nursing workforce issues, nursing education and organizational cultures among others. It is the role of the nurses to use their political skills to push for positive change that guarantees quality and safety improvements (Mason, Leavitt & Chaffee, 2013). The nursing fraternity interacts with the care provision systems more frequently than other healthcare professionals and as such, provide a vital link towards understanding various quality and safety pitfalls and how they could be resolved (Mason, Leavitt & Chaffee, 2013). This leadership competency becomes pretty essential in future nursing as it places nurses at a vantage point with regard to bargaining for better administrative and medical approaches. From personal experience, I believe that there are several organizational and extra-organizational factors that continue to hamper nursing care. Nonetheless, in as much as nurses possess viable solutions to these problems, the lack of sound political skills impairs their ability to effectively engage in the political bargaining process and present their ideas towards improvements. In this connection, there is the need for honing this skill or competency in order to optimally contribute to quality and safety improvement.
A BSN-prepared nurse can assist the budgeting process by collecting clinical data relevant to the budgeting process and sharing it with the nurse leader. A BSN-prepared nurse has the obligation to use analytical and critical thinking skills to assess the care provision process and determine potential sources of revenue or losses and provide this data to the nurse leader as a contribution to the budgeting process. Additionally, by the virtue of their skills and expertise, BSN-prepared nurses can provide data related to resource utilization and allocation and subsequently, help in achieving a more effective budgeting approach.
References
Huston, C. (2010). What skills will the nurse leaders of 2020 need? (2010). Kai Tiaki Nursing New Zealand, 16(6), 14–15.
Mason, D. J., Leavitt, J. K., & Chaffee, M. W. (2013). Policy and Politics in Nursing and Healthcare-Revised Reprint. Elsevier Health Sciences.
