Nursing Leadership Excellence: Coordinating Healthcare Delivery for Quality and Safety - Essay Sample

Introduction

Nurses play an important role in facilitating healthcare provision. Their role in healthcare provision centers on promoting quality health outcomes by facilitating efficiency and effectiveness in treatment and care. With the healthcare industry shifting to patient-based care practice, nurses' role is even more critical in providing high-quality care to achieve the intended healthcare outcomes. However, the provision of quality care requires close coordination of every process and efforts of each stakeholder with the ultimate aim of providing comprehensive healthcare delivery. Thus, the role of nurse managers in coordinating the process of healthcare delivery has become integral. Nurse Managers possess the necessary leadership qualities needed to provide direction among fellow practitioners and coordinate the process of healthcare delivery. Their leadership role is integral in establishing safe and healthy settings that support the health care teams and contribute to patients’ engagement. They have an influential role in developing a professional setting and promoting a culture whereby interdisciplinary team members can promote optimal healthcare outcomes and develop professionally.

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Differences between Leadership and Management

Leadership and management are two sides of the same coin, with a thin line between them. Leadership is the art of providing direction and guidance to a group of followers. The leadership process involves setting goals, motivating, and supporting the followers to achieve shared goals (Mannix, Wilkes, Daly, 2013, pp. 10). On the other hand, management involves planning and organizing resources and individuals needed to achieve the strategic objectives (Mannix, Wilkes, Daly, 2013, pp. 10).

In most cases, leadership is embedded in management such that a manager doubles as a leader. While management focuses on how resources are utilized to achieve organisational goals, leadership is more about uniting the followers around a common idea or objective and motivating them to achieve set goals. Simply put, managers execute while leaders direct.

Leadership has become an integral concept in the healthcare system in the recent past. Leadership is seen as having a great impact on healthcare delivery's effectiveness and quality (Mah'd Alloubani, Almatari, and Almukhtar, 2014, pp. 119). The role of leadership in promoting effectiveness and quality in healthcare delivery manifests in improved healthcare outcomes. A good leader can coordinate the process of healthcare delivery by bringing all the stakeholders- patients and nurses alike- around a single idea and need to improve health outcomes (Mah'd Alloubani, Almatari, and Almukhtar, 2014, pp. 121). Under good leadership, every effort is geared up towards providing the best healthcare possible.

Characteristics of Effective Leadership

Healthcare leadership is crucial in ensuring smooth service delivery. Nurses look up to the nurse managers to provide this much-needed leadership. As such, nurse managers are needed to be good at decision making since various teams and team leaders look up to them to coordinate healthcare delivery. But most importantly, nurse managers need to be adept at managing themselves first before they can manage others (Ambrose and Gullatte, 2011, pp. 2).

Nurse Managers provide direction to others and need to be aware of themselves and draw their motivation and direction from inwards and not outward influence. Through such a self-awareness level, a nurse manager develops a vision and rally, other nurses around achieving such a vision. I met one such nurse manager who possesses the leadership qualities, Mrs. Clara.

Clara Barton is a registered nurse who specialises in oncology nursing. The 35 years old mother of two has professional experience of 11 years, offering care to cancer patients. Working in a more sensitive department in the oncology division, her role in providing much-needed leadership has been crucial in coordinating other staff and ensure that team deliverables are met. As humble as Clara looked, her stun leadership skills that center on complete self-awareness, decision-making, and effective communication have made her a revered figure within the oncology department in her facility.

One stunning leadership quality that Clara possesses is self-awareness. Self-awareness in healthcare involves knowing one's values, personality, emotions, and habits, and how they impact one's actions, perceptions, and interactions with other practitioners (Ambrose and Gullatte, 2011, pp. 2). It is an essential part of emotional intelligence where one recognises themselves by looking at how their values influence their actions, behaviours, and interactions with others. A self-aware nurse leader can recognise their strengths and utilize them to better their followers. Such an individual is similarly aware of his or her weaknesses and works on them to better himself. The argument is that followers look up to the leader, and as such, a leader must be someone who puts their acts together and not look for direction somewhere else in the outside world.

Clara is one such leader who is self-aware. Clara has established self-awareness that enables her to master her emotions and attitude and control such emotions and attitudes when interacting with other practitioners. In the interview, Clara contends with the existing literature that it is impossible to talk about leading others without managing and deploying oneself in that role (Ambrose & Gullatte, 2011, pp. 2). Hence, implies a leader must first be aware of certain elements such as decision-making, timeliness, and tidiness before leading others to follow in that path. Clara specifically relates that her leadership style, which leans towards transformational leadership, has enabled her to develop deep self-awareness about her strengths and weaknesses. Such a level of self-awareness has enabled her to be empathic in her daily interactions with other practitioners and patients and understand every situation from her peers' point of view.

Clara has also developed acute decision-making skills throughout her lifetime, which have proved vital in her role as a nurse manager. Decision-making skills are critical in enabling nurse managers to deliver in their roles as leaders (Al-Hussami et al., 2017, pp. 443). Healthcare organisations have numerous systems and operations that need coordination and direction to facilitate effective healthcare delivery. The performance of systems such as patient record management systems and budgetary allocations need proper decision-making skills (Al-Hussami et al., 2017, pp. 445). Nurse Managers are expected to have strong decision-making skills to coordinate these functions properly and systems in their respective facilities. Further, proper decision-making skills enable them to weigh the risks associated with any move or action (Al-Hussami et al., 2017, pp. 445). As such, they are able to prioritize tasks and medical procedures within their respective healthcare facilities.

Lastly, Clara has developed a deep mastery of conflict resolution skills that have enabled her to manage divergent views, opinions, and culture among her followers. Conflict-solving skills are critical in promoting collaboration among team members and promoting the patients and the nurses' satisfaction (Basogul, 2020, pp. 2). Within a healthcare facility, there exist people from all sorts of backgrounds with different perceptions and perspectives. The difference in cultural orientation implies that disagreement and conflict are always imminent. Nurse managers' role in solving these disagreements and conflicts is crucial in ensuring teamwork and facilitating collaboration in delivering the assigned tasks. The end process is efficiency and effectiveness in healthcare delivery. Clara has utilized her commanding voice and charism to resolve conflicts among her followers throughout her career and rely on qualities such as fairness and integrity to promote both employee and patient engagement in her department.

The Contribution of Nursing Leadership to Quality and Safety

Nursing leadership plays an integral in achieving the intended healthcare outcomes, which is the cornerstone of quality and safety in healthcare delivery. Nursing leaders focus on patients and healthcare teams alike and ensure adequate collaboration between different teams and between the practitioners and the patient to provide the best health outcome (AL-Dossary, 2017, pp. 252). Within this line of reasoning, nursing leaders are required to develop adequate leadership skills necessary to deliver the intended health outcomes. Effective communication as a skill is essential in assisting nursing managers in coordinating healthcare delivery by managing the flow of information between teams and between the practitioner and the patient. On the other hand, critical decision-making skills are essential in providing guidance on procedures and steps to be followed and resources to be used in achieving the desired healthcare outcome.

Additionally, conflict-solving adds to the set of skills that enable nursing leaders to deliver the intended healthcare outcome. There exist differences in opinions, beliefs, and value systems in any healthcare facility's social and cultural environment (Basogul, 2020, pp. 2). A difference in social and cultural orientation among practitioners and patients can hinder the intended healthcare outcome. Nursing leadership's role comes in handy in such situations as they solve the differences and conflicts before they escalate, thereby saving the organisation time and resources and promoting quality and safety at the same time. As Clara relates, her conflict-resolution skills have prevented a lot of damage in her department and enabled her to mediate some of the most volatile situations that could have easily resulted in a physical confrontation.

Decision-Making

What interested me most about Clara was her well-established decision-making skills, which have enabled her to achieve so much in her ten-year career as a registered nurse and a nurse manager. Decision-making skills are crucial in healthcare delivery as it assists in coordinating different systems and functions and improves healthcare relationships and reduces stress produced by such occurrences such as change (Bruning & Baghurst, 2013, pp. 1). For instance, ethical decision-making improves working relationships and trust between patients and physicians and between team members themselves.

My interest is to make ethical decisions that will promote a good working relationship within my department besides ensuring that systems and functions are properly coordinated and delivered.

Conclusion

The significance of clinical leadership in the existing health care system cannot be underestimated or overstated. Positive leadership, including aspects such as prioritizing client and employee's needs, results in a safer and more productive health care environment by motivating employees and reducing adverse events and incidences. As a nurse manager, Clara displays several effective leadership qualities. She advocates for her staff to make sure that there is an appropriate and safe practice environment. Clara also supports the safety of the patient as well as access to quality services. Her experience in different settings shows that she has superior clinical skills to apply to facilitate patient safety and wellbeing. As a nurse manager, Clara does not take sides in quarrels or examine blame before getting all the relevant facts. She promotes peer to peer resolution method, which is an effective method of resolution.