As A Nurse, You Serve An Important Role In Identifyin 779889
As A Nurse You Serve An Important Role In Identifying Strategies To E
As a nurse, you serve an important role in identifying strategies to effectively manage health care resources and in leading health care quality improvement. You must be able to decide what leadership style or strategy to apply in a given situation to achieve an effective resolution of the issue. Read the following two scenarios and select one to focus on in this Discussion. Consider the leadership style or strategy that might be most effective in the scenario you selected.
Scenario 1: You work in a for-profit nursing home, with about 100 beds, on a 20-bed unit that is largely patients with Alzheimer’s disease. Your patient mix is predominantly Medicare and Medicaid patients. Your nursing home is part of a larger system that includes a major medical center, as well as VNA, outpatient dialysis, and a fully integrated network. Your nurse manager is getting feedback from the hospital that your nursing home is sending too many patients to the ED who really don’t need to go. How would you go about figuring out what could be done at the nursing home to prevent avoidable ED visits?
Scenario 2: You’ve been associated with an outpatient cardiology clinic that is part of a large academic medical center. Your patients are mostly charity care and managed Medicaid. Most have a prescription plan, but none have a “family doctor” and use the clinic (and the ED) regularly. Most are unfamiliar with their medications and do not have the resources for care coordination in their family/social network. About 25 CHF patients have been “lovingly,” but inappropriately, called “frequent fliers” because of their inability to manage their own care, their frequent visits to the ED, and their “one night stays” paid at the observation rate. As a staff nurse in this clinic, describe the strategies you could devise for you and your fellow staff nurses targeting these 25 patients.
Find at least one article from the professional literature to corroborate your recommendations.
By Day 3: Select one of the scenarios, and post the following: Describe the most appropriate leadership style and/or strategy to apply in the scenario you chose in order to implement the recommendations successfully. Justify your selection. Support your response with references from the professional nursing literature. Your posts need to be written at the capstone level (see checklist).
Notes: Initial Post: This should be a 3-paragraph (at least 350 words) response. Be sure to use evidence from the readings and include in-text citations. The final step is to develop the plan discussing the steps clearly and succinctly. The plan must be evidence-based.
By Day 4: Post an explanation of how you could apply key interventions supported by scholarly research evidence to potentially help resolve the issue in measurable ways. Continue to collaborate with the selected individuals in your practice environment as needed in the development of the Practice Experience Project, and share this information with your group.
Paper For Above instruction
The chosen scenario for this analysis is Scenario 1, where a nurse works in a for-profit nursing home specializing in Alzheimer’s care and faces feedback about frequent unnecessary emergency department (ED) visits. Implementing an effective leadership strategy in this setting is critical to addressing the root causes of these avoidable visits and ensuring optimal patient outcomes. The most suitable leadership style in this context is transformational leadership, which has been shown to foster motivation, innovation, and collaboration among staff members, ultimately leading to quality improvements. Transformational leaders inspire staff by creating a vision of high-quality, resident-centered care, encouraging teamwork, and promoting continuous education about best practices to prevent unnecessary hospital visits (Cummings et al., 2018). This approach aligns with the complex, patient-centered challenges in this setting, motivating staff to adhere to care protocols designed to reduce ED transfers.
Transformational leadership involves inspiring staff through shared goals, fostering an environment of trust, and empowering nurses to identify and implement proactive strategies. For example, implementing targeted staff education about early signs of deterioration in Alzheimer’s patients can help staff manage potential crises before escalation, thereby reducing ED visits. Additionally, fostering open communication channels among nursing staff, physicians, and other health care team members facilitates rapid decision-making and collaborative problem-solving. Moreover, transformational leaders promote accountability by setting clear expectations and providing ongoing feedback, which encourages adherence to care plans tailored to prevent avoidable hospitalizations (Roussel, 2016). As nurses develop stronger leadership qualities under this model, they become more proactive in employing evidence-based interventions, such as implementing standardized protocols for managing behavioral disturbances and medication management, critical issues in Alzheimer’s care that influence hospitalization rates.
To ensure successful implementation, leadership should also incorporate evidence-based quality improvement strategies such as Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycles. These cycles allow a continuous, systematic review of data related to ED visits, enabling the nursing team to test changes incrementally and measure impact effectively (Benneyan et al., 2019). For example, establishing a multidisciplinary case review committee could evaluate each avoidable ED visit, identify contributing factors, and develop targeted interventions that are regularly updated. Additionally, involving frontline staff in decision-making fosters a sense of ownership and commitment to change initiatives. Ultimately, transformational leadership combined with structured quality improvement processes creates a culture of continuous improvement that can substantially diminish unnecessary ED visits, improve resident safety, and optimize resource utilization in the nursing home environment.
References
- Benneyan, J. C., Lloyd, R. C., & Plsek, P. E. (2019). Continuous improvement in health care: Effective use of Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycles. Quality & Safety in Health Care, 5(1), 30-33.
- Cummings, G. G., Tate, K., Lee, S., Wong, C. A., Paananen, T., Micaroni, S. P., & Hee, L. (2018). Leadership styles and outcome patterns for the nursing workforce and work environment: A systematic review. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 85, 19-60.
- Roussel, L. (2016). Leadership in nursing: Principles and practice. Elsevier.