Nursing Succession Planning Essay

Future nurses and the future of the nursing practice can positively benefit from having a revolving new nurse- nurse leader cycle. With a profession as dynamic as nursing, the involvement of positive leaders and role models is essential for the practice to grow and inspire a nursing force that not only adapts and changes with the profession, but leads and strives for promoting the improvement

Malloch, T. P.-O. (2013). Leadership in Nursing Practice: Changing the Landscape of Health Care. Burlington MA: Jones &

As a nurse administrator, I have a distinct role to play in the healthcare sector. Preparation for this position commences at the graduate level; either masters or doctoral level. Prospective students at graduate level are expected to indicate a variety of roles across healthcare sector as stipulated in the legislative law. Factors such as the nature of the organization and its system of leadership provide credible knowledge that is critical for nursing management roles. As opposed to Gerontology Nurse Practitioners who are expected to have a wide array of technical and hands-on skills

There are many challenges facing today’s nursing leaders and managers. From staffing and scheduling, to budget cuts and reduced reimbursements, today’s nursing leaders must evolve to meet the ever changing health care environment. Constance Schmidt, Chief Nursing Officer at Cheyenne Regional Medical Center (CRMC), identified retaining experienced registered nurses (RN) as one of the biggest problems she faces as a nursing leader. She went on to state “Nationally, most hospitals have more than 60% of their nurses with at least 5 years of experience. At CRMC, it’s the reverse. We have more than 60% of our nurses with less than 5 years of experience” (personal communication, March 28, 2014). The two largest factors affecting those numbers are the nursing shortage and nursing retention. The first, the nursing shortage, was identified years ago and has been researched countless times. Some projections indicate the number representing the gap between available registered nurses, and the positions needing to be filled, could be over a million before the end of the current decade. The latter, retention of nurses, is a problem in every health care facility in the nation. Nursing turnover results in both a significant financial cost to hospitals, and a significant impact on the community through its effects on patient outcome.

In healthcare it is very important to have strong leaders, especially in the nursing profession. A nurse leader typically uses several styles of leadership depending on the situation presented; this is known as situational leadership. It is important that the professional nurse choose the right style of leadership for any given situation to ensure their employees are performing at their highest potential. Depending on which leadership style a nurse leader uses, it can affect staff retention and the morale of the employees as well as nurse job satisfaction (Azaare & Gross, 2011.) “Nursing leaders have the responsibility to create and maintain a work environment which not only promotes positive patient outcomes but also

“Nursing is informed caring for the well-being of others” (Swanson, 1993, p. 352). Kristen Swanson’s relationship-based caring theory encompasses maintaining belief, knowing, being with, doing for, and enabling. Nursing is a profession with vast opportunities for growth and development. Each nurse has his or her individual passions; mine reside within obstetrics, women’s health, and nursing leadership. Nurse leaders play an integral role in the success of healthcare organizations. Nurse leaders shape the roles of nurses within their organizations. Nurse leaders seek methods to improve patient care. They also use innovation to gain efficiencies in care delivery and decrease healthcare cost. Many nurse leaders have an ultimate goal to aspire to be a chief nursing officer in a healthcare

Slide 1: The expectations of nurses today are higher than ever with goals such as achieving top percentiles in nursing and patient satisfaction, to being among the top leaders in quality outcomes, and to build productive work relationships and environments. Nursing leaders serve as the primary link between staff, physicians, and the community. They are expected to be innovative, highly skilled, possess a certain degree of nursing knowledge, and produce qualified individuals to care for the growing population. According to Lorber, Treven, and Mumel (2016) “nursing leadership is pivotal because nurses represent the most extensive discipline in health care”. Because of this growing need for diversity in leadership and my background in the military, I decided to focus on the MSN Executive Track at Chamberlain College of Nursing.

Leadership is all about having the right amount of heart and determination to help make a difference in someone’s life. It takes certain qualities to be considered a good leader. A leader should want to help inspire others to make a change and to be the best that they can be. A true leader does not need to feel powerful, instead they empower those around them. Throughout my life I have come across various leaders who have made an impact on my life. It takes a very special person to inspire and touch people’s lives. Leadership is so much deeper than having power and bossing people around.

In the healthcare field, nursing leaders and managers face consistent issues in their respective practices that force them to alter the way they work and the way they think. In taking on a role as a leader within the field, nursing leaders and managers also take on the role of ensuring that work within an organization runs smoothly regardless of new issues that may arise in the healthcare arena. For instance, in today's healthcare environment, the issues of nurse shortage and nurse turnover have the capacity to alter the healthcare field and many of its respective branches and organizations should these problems not be managed properly by the leaders in the field. In viewing the issue at hand and in discovering how nursing leaders and managers are expected to act, and do act, in order to approach this issues, along with pinpointing the best approach possible to aid this issue, one can better understand which leadership styles are necessary for leaders to function.

A nursing diagnosis identifies an actual or potential response of a patient to a health problem (Jones 2009). Nursing diagnoses are important because they provide the foundation for the selection of nursing interventions (Walton 2008). This care plan is the concluding half to the initial care plan that identified nursing diagnoses and goals with the aim of promoting the holistic wellbeing, mental health, and independence of a 68 year old Mr. Bertoli who has returned home from hospital after experiencing a stroke. Particular emphasis will be placed on proposed interventions to achieve Mr. Bertoli’s healthcare goals and the provision of rationales. This is important to justify the significance of the interventions and indicate

Since the early 1900’s nurses have been trying to improve and individualise patient care. In the 1970s this became more structured when the nursing process was introduced by the general nursing council (GNC), (Lloyd, Hancock & Campbell, 2007) .By doing this their intentions were to try and understand the patient in order to give them the best care possible (Cronin & Anderson, 2003). Through the nursing process philosophy care plans were written for patients. It was understood that this relationship would ensure the patient received the best care possible to suit them individually. This would consist of not just the patient as a physical being but their spiritual emotional and holistic being also (Cutler, 2010). The

3). In this relationship, each must work through phases including conflict resolution and negotiation as part of the process. Transformational theory further explains leadership must include exhibiting a degree of emotional intelligence. This occurs when perceiving how others feel, understanding how the feelings lead to thinking, understanding the emotions, and managing emotions internally. In respects to this theory, emotional intelligence enhances this bi-directional relationship between the leader and the followers (Spears, 2002).

A nursing director in a hospital organization is the chief of all nurses employed in the healthcare institution. He or she is appointed by the administrative body or a group of stock holders of the agency in accordance to the criteria stated by the policies of the organization as well as in congruence to the Nursing Law being applied in the state or location. By education and management experience, a registered nurse is given an administrative position wherein he or she can facilitate the implementation of the organization’s mission and vision statement to its personnel.

The ongoing instability evidenced from the high mobility of qualified nurses in the nursing workforce has raised many questions about the issue of nursing shortage and nurse turnover (Gates & Jones, 2007). The paper below discusses the issues of nursing shortage and nurse turnover. The paper also describes how leaders as well as managers in the nursing fraternity and other leaders can resolve those problems effectively and the different applicable principles, skills, roles of the leader, and theories of leadership and management.

Leadership traits associated with nurse executives are honesty, credibility, supportiveness, visibility, and flexibility. Nurse executives analyze nursing functions and empower nurses through participatory decision making, shared governance, and employee involvement. Nurse executives share the vision and goals of the hospital and promote application of a nursing theory into the nursing care delivery system. They anticipate the future of health care and nursing and serve as monitor, role model, and preceptor to lower level management (Upeniecks, 2003). Nurse executives in the Magnet program are required to have advance practice degrees with certification in their specialty (ANCC). Understanding evidence-based management and enabling the use of evidence-based knowledge provides the nurse executive with the tools to improve patient outcomes. The transformational leader will remove barriers to improvement and encourage outcome based thinking. While nurse leaders are charged with questioning the status quo, nurse managers in the transformational approach to leadership are charged with maintaining the status quo.