The Work Environment At A Large Community Hospital

This author spoke with several nurses to discuss Summa’s shared governance. There were two that had two opposing views of it. One nurse, who was younger, felt that the shared governance was just for show to achieve Magnet status. The cons she found was that the recommendations that staff nurses made were just ignored. Another problem she found was that the work that was put into it was not being reimbursed financially. Problem with shared governance is that it is believed to exist where there is empowerment, but it is has more to do with traditional board governance with some staff input. The result is that it is not founded in the actions of the staff nurse, but the actions of administration (Joseph & Bogue, 2016). The other nurse, who was older, was very excited to discuss shared governance. Her department was the first at Summa to initiate shared governance. Some of the pros were nurses had a voice and a path to follow to institute change. She explained how she

This approach did not address the serious issue of the knowledge and skill base of older nurses, Hospitals and health care organizations quickly concluded that while it is essential to recruit new people into nursing, it is as crucial to retain older, more experienced nurses in the workforce.. The endeavor of this proposal is to explore ways to facilitate nurses in dealing with demands while passing on the benefit of their expertise to younger colleagues. A detailed account has been provided of the most important factors and outlined strategies or measures that could be engaged to keep both beginner and expert nurses from leaving the hospital setting. Findings from the research proposal can assist healthcare administrators in drawing and retaining nurses in hospital settings. Retaining the highest quality and adequate quantity of nurses is the assurance of a successful organization (Runy, 2006).

One mistake that new nurse leaders make is that they believe that the only way to get things accomplished, is to be direct and autocratic (Kerfoot, 2008.) The new leader’s fear of failing can influence them to take on the autocratic role to try and earn respect from their employees. However, this is not considered to be very effective among staff. When the professional nurse takes on the autocratic leadership trait and uses it on a daily basis, employees feel micromanaged. When a manager micromanages their employees they take the risk of lowering morale, and losing good workers (North, 2011.) Nurses have a lot of autonomy in their profession. They work independently and take responsibility for their actions. When they become micromanaged by their nurse leader, it takes away that autonomy and creates a work environment that is very low in morale, and can hurt the relationship between manager and employee. Often managers are experiencing a substantial amount of stress from the administration concerning budgets, deadlines, and high performance issues, but this does not justify micromanaging employees (North, 2011.) It is important to give your staff some independence; this lets them know you trust their judgment (North, 2011.) A nurse leader may also change their leadership style depending on if they are dealing with an inexperienced new graduate nurse, or an experienced veteran nurse.

Having effective leadership and management is essential for any health care facility to operate. Both leadership and management are an essential part to delivering quality healthcare to the patients that they serve. The foundation to any facility is nursing which must be led by the best leadership and management available for its continued success. This is the key to helping that facility to achieve a high level of patient and employee satisfaction. Having adequate staffing for any facility is an issue that many facilities face due to the shortage of nurses. This paper will compare and contrast nurse leaders and managers thoughts with the use of contract employees to assist with the shortage of nursing staff. It will also show support with theory, principles, skills, and roles of the leader versus the manager. It will also identify the writer’s personal philosophy of nursing as well as explain her own personal style of leadership.

The national nursing shortage is predicted to continue to rise to levels that have not been seen since the 1960’s (Fasoli, 2010). Managers must create an environment that is conducive to employees. The leader needs to promote organizational commitment and retain employees by promoting a positive culture on the unit. Nurses want an environment where they can provide high-quality care to patients and leaders must help facilitate and maintain this environment. Employees also want to feel like their opinions matter to the manager, and they have a say in the future of the unit. Employees do not want to feel like they are not important, or their voices are not being heard.

Taking care of your staff, emotional needs, physical needs, and establishing an excellent work environment is imperative to the production of work, and the retention of your staff. Therefore with the participative style of leadership, effective communication is imperative in nursing. Communication whether through emails, meetings, one-on-one, or in a group must be done with respect, directly to the point of what is being said and required along with the awareness of their own feelings and biases so that what is being communicated is acceptable to enhance the workplace and not hinder it (Huber, 2014). One of the ways I communicate is with nursing meetings. In the meetings I usually start with things that are facility wide, then maybe new procedures that is being implemented, and I always end with the nurses bringing in any problems, concerns, needs or wants. The last key element that is important for the leader to be able to have meaningful recognition of their employees. Recognition of employees not only facilitates the wiliness to strive more, but it also reiterates to the staff, that they are appreciated (Huber, 2014). There are several ways to recognize staff; one is

In a hospital setting, medical billers perform different functions than medical billers that work in a physician's office. Some of the medical coding is different, also different procedure coding. I want to work in the hospital setting because I believe I can be more help and it can be more challenging for

We hear nurse’s talk about how rewarding their profession is but what they seldom talk about is how it can be very challenging as well. There seems to be many issues existing in the nursing profession. One of the most affective issues in nursing is the decreasing number of staff nurses. With inadequate staffing, nurses are demanded to have more responsibilities thus causing more stress on the nurse. This increase in responsibility causes nurses to neglect many aspects of their patients’ care. Patient care is suffering from the shortage of nurses as there is an increase in adverse patient outcomes due to the shortage. Also, there is evidence that there is a positive relationship between the number of staff and the effectiveness of their teamwork. The more staff available the more likely nurses will work together as a team. A new act is being implemented to help with the nursing shortage. This act is called the National Nursing Shortage Reform and Patient Advocacy Act. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the issue of nursing shortage and how the National Nursing Shortage Reform and Patient Advocacy Act is an example of evidence-based practice.

In hospitals in the United States, nurses are left to suffer the consequences of short staffing. In response, they are subject to excessive workloads, added stress, and a heightened feeling of anguish which often silences their cries for change. Not only does short staffing affect the nurses, it also impacts the hospital itself. Research has shown that low staffing levels in hospitals has a direct impact on quality of patient care and job dissatisfaction from nurses. In order to satisfy the affected nurses and prevent them from burnout, a solution must be implemented. Supplemental nursing can be the answer to all staffing conflicts if implemented wisely by charge nurses who complete scheduling. Nurses must also raise awareness for the cause

Leadership and management are equally important practices; however, where leadership focuses on influencing people to accomplish a goal, management focuses on influencing staff to fulfill an organization’s goals and targets the majority of their attention on organizational goals and objectives (Huber, 2010). In order for nursing managers to combat shortages and retention issues, they need to improve job satisfaction on the organizational level. Some approaches to doing that are: innovative job redesign, the creation of knowledgeable, confident nursing leaders, enhancing supervisor and administrative support and career ladder development (Morgan & Lynn, 2009). Strong nurse managers will collaborate with their nursing leaders to analyze ways to attract new nursing staff to the profession while also being pro-active in improving staff retention (Duffield, Roche, Blay & Stasa, 2010). They also understand that there is a connection between strong nurse leaders, employee satisfaction, a healthy work environment and nurse retention. Another approach nurse managers can take to increase job satisfaction and decrease turn-over is to acknowledge and praise staff for a job well done. Studies have shown that recognition and praise from management had a strong influence on job satisfaction (Duffield, Roche, Blay & Stasa,

1) a. Nurse Gould is experiencing emotional and psychological stress related to her new position as an assistant director in an intensive care nursery. Nurse Gould is experiencing work related stress. Nurse Gould lacks practical experience in nursing. This places a great deal of stress on her as staff nurses do not believe that they can refer to her for assistance when it comes to issues related to nursing practice (Huber, 2014). Staff nurses do not seek her assistance because they doubt her abilities. However, staff nurses are more apt to seek help from the director of nursing rather than Nurse Gould. Moreover, Nurse Gould’s vision about management and leadership is in conflict with the director’s take on management and leadership. This also creates another stressor for Nurse Gould. Even when she tried to connect with the staff by creating the “Lunch with the Manager” sessions, she still felt ignored by the rest of the staff when they did not invite her to the meetings about education issues in the unit (Huber, 2014). Nurse Gould’s stress can be reflected on other staff nurses as this may affect their productivity and satisfaction with their work (Mishra et al., 2011). Staff nurses require a leader that they can depend on to resolve their issues. Nurse Gould may not be as effective in helping other staff nurses if she is highly stressed (Huber, 2014).

By empowering the community of nurses and sustaining employee engagement, patient and employee satisfaction would remain the same, if not increase (6 Leadership strategies for navigating perpetual change in healthcare, 2015). Change is hard for most people and the time to adjust varies. The problem in question will be discussed further in the following sections, as well as a strategy to solve the issue, as well as a conclusion.

The nursing shortage also causes conflict between nurse managers and their staff nurses. Because of the burden of the heavy workloads of the unit during the nursing shortage, nurse managers feel stressed and burnt out too. Since they have to work more than 14 hours per day. They also have to be responsible and accountable for their department for 12/12 hours. Therefore, they don't have enough time to support their staff nurses for handling their heavy workload or give them opportunities for career development. Also, they don't have time to resolve conflicts between staff nurses or give staff nurse their recognition of their accomplishments. As the result, shese drawbacks cause the conflict between nurse managers and staff nurses (Hunt, 2009).

Nursing leaders have to understand a healthy work environment feeds on the results of effective communication and respect among nurses (Hendricks & Cope, 2012). According to Kupperschmidt, Kientz, Ward & Reinholz (2010) supported that skilful communication is paramount to nursing practice. Different generation nurses have their preferred means of communication, it can be feedbacks, informal discussions and group discussions etc. (Hendricks & Cope, 2012) but the way of delivering effective communication is universal. Hence, nursing leaders should focus on being genuine, mindful, honest, impartial and insightful (Kupperschmidt, Kientz, Ward & Reinholz, 2010) when communication takes place. Therefore, leaders in nursing, to be proficient in effective communication in the workforce will not only benefit them but in return, nurses will feel respected. Furthermore, the cooperation, accommodation and assimilation of multiple generations of nurses can be enhanced in an

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.