Practicum Evaluation: Orlando Children's Clinic

In unit 7 Discussion, we are asked to discuss the relevance of succession planning for any healthcare organization. Consider a selected healthcare organization and propose any specific challenges associated with that type of organization (funding, training, education, staffing, et cetera). Include the titles or departments that might be engaged to implement and monitor an innovative program or service.

This paper aims to address and discuss about the leadership and management of the nurse leader interviewed. This experience was a great opportunity to witness first hand how a nurse leader cultivate and manage their staffs in real life setting. Moreover, it provides a great access to gain insight and knowledge about nurse leaders’ vital responsibilities and role diversities in the organizations they work with. Nurse leaders pay more specific and close attention in handling the staffs and most importantly, patient care.

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.

The Health Care System 's purpose is to meet the physical and mental health needs of the communities in which they serve, these systems operate using people working within heal care facilities as well as other health delivery resources. One group of individual that help with facility operations are nursing administrators. Nursing Administrators contribute in managing along with directing the nursing care delivery system. Their leadership style, characteristics, communication strategies, including the way that they negotiate as well as manage conflicts can determine the quality of the healthcare services treat the facility provide as well as help to develop a set of guidelines to standardize the type and quality of the nursing services. (Cipriano, 2011) Together the Nurse Mangers work toward the same goals along with guiding nurses in their practice and contribute to the facilities successes. (Frankel, 2011) The nursing leaders are advocates who directly affect the quality of the nursing care along with also having a positive impact on healthcare through leadership.

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

Leadership and management are essential to any health care organization, balancing patient care, employees, physicians, and the organization. Nursing is founded on interpersonal relationships. As a people-oriented profession, nursing leadership styles are influenced by humanism. The mission, attitude, and behaviors of a health care organization begins with its leadership, which creates the direction and purpose of the organization. The purpose of this paper is to differentiate between leadership and management, describe views of leadership, and explain the

There are many avenues to cross in pursuit of an established healthcare facility. The premise of leadership begins with moral practices, combined with, knowledge of succession planning. With changing healthcare laws such as HIPAA, Healthcare Affordability Act and the process of maintaining OSHA compliance, it is key that those placed in healthcare leadership grasp not only the significance of such laws, but understand how it compliments safety while preventing harm and legal issues. Planning is key and maintaining a succession plan will assist in preventing a lapse in leadership in the event of a staff crisis.

Healthcare changes occurring today along with shrinking budgets and reimbursement rates for hospitals has forced institution CEOs to do more with less. Changes and restructuring of various health facilities require nursing leaders with flexibility and adaptability. Nurse leaders must also consider budgetary constraints, cost effectiveness, patient safety, and quality care while maintaining focus on improved patient outcome. The responsibility of ensuring patients receive safe and high quality care belongs to every employee in the hospital, including support staff such as IV therapy. In this hospital, this led to the development of a nurse director position to oversee the

The current and growing shortage of nurses is posing a real threat to the ability of hospitals, long-term care facilities, and others to provide timely access to quality care. Nurse staffing shortages and nurse turn-over contributes to the growing reduction in the number of staffed patient beds available for services, increasing costs, and rising concerns about the quality of care. Health care organizations highly depend on nurse managers and leaders to reverse this trend. This paper discusses the reasons for nursing shortage and turn-over, different approaches to solve this issue, and my personal philosophy about this issue.

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.

Administrators utilize this form of management to enhance recruitment of professional nurses, maintain a stable professional, workforce that deliver safe effective cost conscious care. Some nurses will argue shared governance is just a organizational model of management, and “various factors lead to turnover, including excessive physical and psychological demands, unsupportive environments and long shift work” (Trinkoff, Johantgen, Liang, Gurses, Storr, Hopkinson, Han, 2010 p. 309).

Despite these suggestions, as many as 70% of hospitals still actively lack succession planning initiatives and over a third of existing nurse succession plans primarily focus on top-level management positions (Titzer, Shirley & Hauck, 2014). With more than 44% of nurses in management positions reported to be over the age of 55 and the cost of replacing nurse managers climbing to 75-125% of typical annual salaries, organization's need to turn increasing attention to proactive succession planning in order to remain viable in the healthcare industry (Sverdlik, 2012; Titzer et al., 2013). Increasing pressures to fill vacancies is resulting in clinically skilled but often underprepared nurses being selected for nursing leadership positions (Titzer & Shirley, 2013). Lack of formal preparation renders many aspiring nurse managers ineffective which has been associated with negative implications such as role transition stress, poor work environment, and increased turnover (Titzer & Shirley, 2013). This is further complicated by a lack of interest among younger novice nurses in leadership and management roles (Titzer et al., 2013). As such, the proposed succession planning program will utilize a multilayered approach to encompass all

Today’s health care organizations are complex, interrelated systems that must adapt to changing societal demands while working with an increasing need for cost containment. A shift from the antiquated linear model to a patient-centered, holistic approach is vital to address the complicated requirements. Advanced practice nurses with an understanding of organizational analysis and leadership are crucial to this conversion. The first step of this process is an assessment of the organization’s current climate. The purpose of this paper is to present an organizational analysis of an outpatient health care facility by examining the organization’s culture, readiness for change and by utilizing concepts recommended by Collins as the framework for evaluation.

The primary team members in this strategic plan are those who belong to the hospital and the community. They have positive impact on the project and engage in an effort to lead the process of changes to the required outcome (Alberto, 2009). For instance, the Director of Nursing, the Nurse Manager, staff nurses, and any team member who is involved in the process. A skillful leader has to believe in the project, and has positive influence on the rest of the team members.

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.