401022: Nursing Assessment - Leadership in Promoting Patient Safety

December 13, 2017
Author : Alex

Solution Code: 1AAHB

Question: Nursing Assessment

This assignment is related to ”Nursing Assessment” and experts at My Assignment Services AU successfully delivered HD quality work within the given deadline.

Nursing Assessment

Case Scenario/ Task

Apply Primary Health Care principles to promote client autonomy, access, equity and participation in their health care.

Evidence a capacity to provide culturally sensitive, safe and competent care and to acknowledge and advocate for the rights of individuals, families and groups who hold diverse cultural and spiritual beliefss.

Explain the origins of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples' health issues and relate their significance to the provision of appropriate nursing care within the context of a humane and just health care service.

Communicate ethically with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and other culturally diverse individuals or groups to promote their independence and control of their health situation.

Demonstrate sound written and spoken English communication skills for the purpose of ensuring effective and appropriate professional communication including documentation.

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Solution:

Introduction

Leadership and patient safety

Patient safety is the process of preventing harm to patients by adopting a practice that reduces the risk of adverse events that are related to medical care across a range of conditions or diagnosis. Such practice includes the appropriate use of prophylaxis, antibiotics, real-time ultrasound guidance, etc. many patient safety practices like the use of bar coding, computerized order entry, simulators, and crew resource management are some of the possible strategies that can be adopted in avoiding patient safety errors in improving healthcare services (Lahariya, Choure & Singh, 2015). It is hence an attribute health care discipline that is responsible for the safety science methods aimed at achieving a trustworthy healthcare delivery system. It minimizes that impact of incidence of adverse health events and maximizes the recovery from such health events as well. This paper thus presents the relationship between leadership and patient safety as well as how different styles of leadership can be used to ensure effective patient care.

Patient safety, thus examines the reasons for occurrences of medical errors that may lead to adverse health events. It thus shifts them from a single cause to a legalistic framework or even engineering systems and design frameworks that can be adopted to improve the safety of patients. Such errors can occur due to incompetence, system breakdowns, individual ineptitude, and poor patient care and training among other reasons. As a result, West-Burnham (2011) argues that such causative factors can be reduced by redesigning processes and systems using human factor principles through design features to reduce the possible occurrences of such harmful medical events. System thinking, learning and transparency, professionalism, and culture, and accountability for safe, effective care delivery have thus been adopted as relevant patient safety practices (Lahariya, Choure & Singh, 2015)

Relationship between patient safety and leadership in clinical practice

According to Ball, Kaminski and Webb, (2016), leadership in a clinical setting should be aimed at promoting and supporting complementary practices between physicians and nurses. The leadership is also responsible for examining the organizational structure so as to ensure that nursing trustees and administrators, corporate with policy-making bodies on equal footing as medical professionals or. The leaders are as well expected to be part of such bodies to ensure a safe health care system and sustainable clinical setting that can improve the health of patients. In their research, Zwijnenberg et al. (2014) point out that patient safety like any other critical care units requires guidance under an active leadership that can promote a multidisciplinary approach as well as medical and nursing inputs. For this reason, Ahmed et al. (2014) point out that practical and effective patient safety practices require specific leadership styles and principles that can promote the optimization of resources in the critical care units within a clinical setting.

As different leadership principles and styles can be adopted to ensure healthy patient safety practices, effective leadership requires two major qualities. In their study, Kuokkanen and Leino-Kilpi, (2011) reports, accountability and responsibility for the effective functioning and close collaboration between the patients and the stakeholders involved as vital principles. When vested appropriately, they can promote decision-making as the goals of patient safety tend to be different and yet complementary strategies with a common aim of safe patient care. Effective leadership, knowledge, and expertise are thus necessary for a productive exploration of patient safety issues in a manner that is beneficial and suitable in a clinical setting (Ammouri et al., 2015). Patient safety is thus primarily dependent on effective leadership that will enable the achievements of the set goals of patient care.

Leadership styles and their characteristics

  • Transactional leadership

It is a method of leadership that is based on transactions that are conducted by the subordinate staff and nurse manager as it is grounded in the theory that workers are motivated by discipline and rewards. Such kind of leadership style does not focus on the future, but rather ensures that everything done today is perfect and goals well achieved. Transactional leadership style, thus focuses on rewarding compliant staff with gifts and pay increases as he punishes poor performance to instill progressive discipline. It is thus a focal point and authoritarian leadership style that cannot successfully meet all the facets of nursing to ensure effective patient safety as pointed out by (Ammouri et al., 2015).

  • Laissez-faire leadership style

Laissez-faire type of a leader is understood to be a hand-off person that gives the employees the freedom of working on their own with little or totally no guidance. For instance, such medical leaders permit subordinate employees to have the virtually unlimited leeway of doing what they want as they give minimal directions. The authority is thus invested on the employees who have the choice of decision-making on what is right for them. They devise their goals in the process of solving any problems that can arise. It is a leadership style that is only effective when leading a medical staff that is well-educated, motivated, self-directed, and highly skilled as a result of many years of experience at work. However, it cannot be effective with unmotivated workers lacking time management, unskilled, and have insufficient experience (Ball, Kaminski & Webb, 2016).

  • Transformational leadership

The leadership style focuses on encouraging those under the authority to deliver their best through showing real examples through a sheer influence of the optimistic personality of the leader. Such a kind of leader operates with the idea that nurses or medical practitioners receive motivation of good performance through a positive and not negative incentive. A transformational leader thus inspires and encourages team building, is innovative and creative in the transformation of those under his authority so as to accomplish the goals of the clinical environment. Such a leader thus instills self-motivation that will enable the employees to do their jobs without being lured by rewards or force of discipline. However, Kaufman, and McCaughan (2013) point out that the style can flop miserable in case the nurse manager lacks the energy or personality traits of bringing the best of the employees.

How the leadership styles can promote patient safety

The ultimate goal of every clinical setting is influencing the quality of patient care under a good nursing leadership. Good leaders need to encourage the junior staff and help them gain the relevant experience and better understanding of the values of patients and their needs. The goal of the leader should thus focus on patient satisfaction, good nurse-patient relationship, and reduced recovery time (Cappelen et al. 2016). Empowered or self-motivated nurses tend to focus on implementing evidence-based practices that are geared towards achieving organizational goals. They thus ensure the deliverance of effective and greater patient care. As a result, Dressler et al. (2014) point out that good leadership promotes better patient outcomes as it promotes better nursing experts through a new level of competence and increased staff's ability.

Cappelen et al. (2016) urge that every medical practice in any clinical setting has a significant effect on the outcome of the patient. As a result, the junior staff needs to be encouraged to seek maximum patient safety standards and be expected to achieve as well as maintain a high-quality benchmark. A transactional leader will thus motivate the staff to achieve maximum safety standards to avoid any possible medical error on the return of rewards for a good work done. On the other hand, he will punish possible cases of medical errors, a step that will force the junior staff to be very careful in service delivery. A Laissez-Faire style of leadership will promote a free working environment for the staff to work best under minimal supervision. Ridelberg et al. (2016) urges that when the junior staff is given time to concentrate on their work, the results tend to be positive. While showing what needs to be done in action, a transformational leader tends to drive self-motivation of the junior staff so as to promote their skills and experience in the process of their duties. Self-motivation promotes accuracy, and better results, hence reduce the causes of medical errors.

Conclusion

This paper has presented the essential leadership styles that are vital in promoting patient safety in a clinical setting. In the process of developing competent and skilled staff, leadership behavior has a great impact on the junior staff. The senior nurses thus need to acknowledge that important role they play in recognizing that the junior staffs rely on their leadership skills and guidance in the process of developing their personal capability and skills to promote patient safety. The leadership positions should thus be used to influence the needs and outcomes of the organization towards meeting the goals of patient safety positively.

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