Free Essay: The Nurses Role in Supporting the Organization's Strategic Agenda

Nurses are in the forefront in patient care as they are the ones who spent much time with the patients. As such, according to Dubois et al. (2013), they are core in driving the strategic agenda of an organization forward. The purpose of this study is to provide insights on the role of nurses in supporting the strategic agenda of an organization based on an interview that will be conducted with a quality manager in an acute care department.

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Summary of the Interview

The interview that formed the basis of the insights was conducted with James Peterson, a quality manager in a General Surgical Unit (GSU) in a hospital with a bed capacity of 500. The inpatients in this unit are those with major surgical operations as well as those with intermediate surgeries. In the unit are fifteen RNs, 10 PCAs, and 2 supervisors. During this interview, a discussion was held with the quality manager on the nature of roles that nurses have in ensuring that the strategic agenda of the healthcare facility are implemented. Additionally, the various methods, which can be used to ensure that nurses improve the way they play their roles, was discussed at depth.

In the interview, I enquired from Mr. Peterson whether nurses have any role in ensuring positive clinical outcomes and if yes, to what extent are the roles. In his response, he insisted that they actually have an enormous role, as they are responsible for the safety and health of the patients. The care of the patients in the inpatient department begins with and ends with the nurses. The go-slow of the nurses brings about various negativities hence underscoring their fundamental role in the clinical outcomes. He added that the healthcare facility is deploying measures such as the never events, roundings, among others in a quest to ensure that their roles are well defined so that the healthcare facility achieves its core mission.

Impact of Nursing Practice

The interview with Mr. Peterson changed my perception on the role that nurses have in the healthcare setting. Specifically, gauging from how the medical doctors treat and view nurses I was perplexed at how he portrayed the role of nurses. As a result, I realized that they have a bigger role than anyone else does and should, therefore, be encouraged through proper measures to execute their mandates. More importantly, it was my comprehension that the absence of nurses means that there is no healthcare as the safety and health of the patients will not be guaranteed (Melnyk et al., 2014).

The interview proved that nurses have a critical role that should be appreciated more than it is often done. Specifically, although nurses are undervalued and rarely appreciated, they are the cornerstone of any positive clinical outcomes (Backhaus et al., 2014). Additionally, their roles cannot be usurped with any other as no other persons in the healthcare facilities can execute the mandates of nurses.

Summary

To summarize, an interview was conducted with the quality manager of the General Surgical Unit (GSU) of a healthcare facility named James Peterson. The interview was meant to obtain information on whether nurses have a role in influencing the clinical outcomes of an organization. The interviewee stated that they actually have an enormous role. Additionally, he added that measures such as never events, hourly roundings, etc. are devised with the aim of ensuring that nurses execute their duties perfectly. Indeed, this interview has proved that nurses are the cornerstones of positive clinical outcomes in any healthcare organization.

References

Backhaus, R., Verbeek, H., van Rossum, E., Capezuti, E., & Hamers, J. P. (2014). Nurse staffing impact on quality of care in nursing homes: A systematic review of longitudinal studies. Journal of the American Medical Directors Association, 15(6), 383-393.

Dubois, C. A., D'amour, D., Tchouaket, E., Clarke, S., Rivard, M., & Blais, R. (2013). Associations of patient safety outcomes with models of nursing care organization at unit level in hospitals. International journal for quality in health care, 25(2), 110-117.

Melnyk, B. M., GallagherFord, L., Long, L. E., & FineoutOverholt, E. (2014). The establishment of evidencebased practice competencies for practicing registered nurses and advanced practice nurses in realworld clinical settings: proficiencies to improve healthcare quality, reliability, patient outcomes, and costs. Worldviews on EvidenceBased Nursing, 11(1), 5-15.