Nurses have the power to promote quality and advocate for change, whether it is internally, with nursing organizations, externally with governments, or directly with elected politicians. Staff nurses provide the front line of patient care. Every day, they are exposed to the details of providing direct patient care. This aspect of nursing may not always be known to the management team. Management must consider the operational aspects of the business, but they sometimes neglect the patient care that is going on right in front of them. Therefore, nurses should have a voice and need to be heard in a healthcare institution.
Organizational Culture
A habit that applies to an organization is organizational culture (Paais et al., 2020). Every organization has its traditions and routines (Paais et al., 2020). An organization’s workforce’s fundamental presumptions and beliefs are then established and transmitted to address issues with external adaption and internal integration (Paais et al., 2020). The function of leadership in transforming the organizational climate to be more ideal and professional is inseparable from the composition of motivation as a driving element in enhancing employee performance and happiness (Paais et al., 2020).
For this week’s discussion post, the author would like to highlight the organizational culture at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida. Moffitt Cancer Center is a Magnet hospital. Magnet hospitals offer several benefits to nurses. The likelihood of burnout is lower, and job satisfaction is generally higher for nurses. Magnet hospitals often offer safer working conditions for their nurses, enabling them to provide better patient care. The CEO and CNO use the transformational leadership style at the organization. When a leader caters to the needs and motivations of followers, each can reach higher levels of motivation and morality because of the engagement (Yoder-Wise, 2019). This process is known as transformational leadership. The leader serves as an example for those around them by exhibiting positivity, stimulating the mind, and fostering innovation (Yoder-Wise, 2019). Nurses at work feel empowered by having regular townhall meetings, open door policy, and employee engagement activities. Leadership also supports budget changes to improve the quality of patient safety. The leadership of Moffitt doesn’t stop finding innovative ways to support the organization’s mission to cure cancer.
Strategies
The strategies that nurses can implement to move (or maintain) the healthcare organization to a high-performing organization are being proactive and advocating for evidence-based practices. Staying on top of continuing education courses will ensure that only up-to-date, evidence-based practices are used. education courses will ensure that only the up-to-date evidence-based practices are used in practice. Attending town hall and staff meetings can allow nurses to voice their concerns and opinions about organizational change.
Conclusion
Nurses have the potential to have a much more significant impact than they may realize. If nurses are secure enough to speak up when they notice chances to change their surroundings, problems like avoidable medical errors in nursing practice may be discovered and avoided. Nurses are more eager and open to sharing their issues and ideas when leadership has an open-door policy for their staff. A higher-performing organization can result from effective organizational adjustments.
References:
Paais, M., & Pattiruhu, J. R. (2020). Effect of motivation, leadership, and organizational culture on satisfaction and employee performance. The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business, 7(8), 577–588. https://doi.org/10.13106/jafeb.2020.vol7.no8.577
Yoder-Wise, P. S. (2019). Leading, Managing, and Following. In Leading and managing in nursing (p. 10). essay, Mosby.
The importance of nurses in a high-performing healthcare company cannot be overstated. Staff nurses are constantly at the fore of patient care, advocating for patients and their fellow nurses and promoting patient safety. This enhances patient health outcomes, fosters a positive working environment, and increases staff and patient trust. A high-performing healthcare organization, according to Spath (2018), consists of a group of leaders and managers who are deeply involved with the staff, facilitating open communication, fostering trust, working toward continuous improvement, and ultimately creating a culture that is quality-focused to improve patient health outcomes. Nearly every area of patient care involves direct involvement from nurses. They are in charge of keeping an eye on and evaluating patients and making quick treatments to lower risk or stop medical issues. These and numerous other factors make nurses crucial to promoting quality treatment.
Ambitious standards of care drive my healthcare organization’s organizational culture to deliver the finest possible, most affordable treatment for our patients. This is evident in our vision, which is to provide all patients with the most outstanding healthcare services through comprehensive clinical practice, teaching, and research. Yoder-Wise (2019) asserts that an organization’s mission, vision, philosophies, ideals, and objectives are indicative of its organizational structure’s effectiveness. Quality has always been our guiding principle as we work to provide the most outstanding healthcare services. We use local and national benchmarks to keep us on track.
A transformative leadership style can be used to define the CEO and CNO of my organization. A transformational leader, according to Yoder-Wise (2019), has a vision for the standard of care they want to provide and acts on it by fostering a sense of community and upholding comfort, transparency, and inter-professional collaboration. In my healthcare organization, all management agendas are always patient-centered, ensuring that all staff members work as a team to achieve those agendas. Our administration considers all suggestions, grievances, and complaints from the personnel. This leadership approach stimulates workers and encourages them to perform at their highest potential. The senior leadership at my facility always supports any improvements that call for funding to support patient safety. Our CEO is more enthusiastic rather than financial rewards in enhancing patient health outcomes and contentment.
Last but not least, there are a few tactics I might be able to use to transform my healthcare organization into a high-performing one. The first tactic is to promote continuous learning for all employees. Science constantly develops with new findings, inventions, and technological advancements that improve healthcare delivery and health outcomes. Second, I would push for replacing the current, antiquated technical systems in use in my facility with brand-new, innovative ones. This will support improved patient care, easier workflow, and the digitization of healthcare services, among other things.
Additionally, I advocate for standardizing clinical procedures and rigorous adherence to them. I would find deficiencies facing my healthcare facility and bring them to the administration’s attention before implementing these changes. As a result, adopting these new adjustments, little to no resistance would be met. Additionally, I’ll endeavor to persuade those who consistently try to thwart change processes to accept these fresh advancements. These tactics and many others will transform my healthcare organization into a high-performing one.
References
Spath, P. (2018). Introduction to healthcare quality management (3rd ed.). Chicago, IL: Health Administration Press.
Yoder-Wise, P. S. (2019). Leading and managing in nursing (7th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Mosby
The Nurse’s Role in Promoting Quality Healthcare
Nurses have a major role in promoting health and the well-being of their patients. This is also aligned with the vision of healthcare systems, which most ensure that the services offered are reliable, safe, and timely. There are institutions and professional bodies that keep in touch to ensure the outcomes are achieved. Another way of observing the outcomes is by using evidence-based practice to test nurse-patient relationships and patient satisfaction (Al et al.,2020) For instance, I have been working as a psychiatric nurse, and one of the requirements was to come up with therapeutic skills that analyze individual mental health cases. One way of supporting the positive outcome is understanding an organization’s culture, and aligning that with the vision.
There is a need for an organization’s culture to include beliefs, assumptions, norms, values, and vision that hold an organization capable of achieving its goals (Allen et al.,2017). Also, we have organizations that have defensive nurses who only trust their culture and nothing more. Most times, these nurses are illiterate about the new interventions, and education is well offered to them, they would agree to the new ideas. From this explanation, it means that our CNO is uncommitted to having new practices and ideas. In addition, she does not easily agree to new interventions unless the concept is well-researched, functional, and causes zero harm to the patient.
At times, I find it hard to convince the senior leadership, but they are only supportive of the change that looks promising in providing quality outcomes. For instance, I remember a time the senior leadership utilized a new system of using follow-up forms in reducing readmission rates in the psychotic department. They started by coming up with a budget for educational programs directed to nurses. The healthcare facility is really working hard towards having a culture that understands healthcare trends. Personally, I would put more emphasis on encouraging the organization to create a room for nurses to engage in decision-making and have greater leadership input (Farokhzadian et al.,2018). When this is put in place, I am fully assured that the needs of the organization that are nurse-focused will be met.
References
Allen‐Duck, A., Robinson, J. C., & Stewart, M. W. (2017, October). Healthcare quality: a concept analysis. In Nursing forum (Vol. 52, No. 4, pp. 377-386).
Al Sabei, S. D., Labrague, L. J., Miner Ross, A., Karkada, S., Albashayreh, A., Al Masroori, F., & Al Hashmi, N. (2020). Nursing work environment, turnover intention, job burnout, and quality of care: The moderating role of job satisfaction. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 52(1), 95-104.
Farokhzadian, J., Dehghan Nayeri, N., & Borhani, F. (2018). The long way ahead to achieve an effective patient safety culture: challenges perceived by nurses. BMC health services research, 18(1), 1-13.