Discuss an example of how a nurse leader was successful in spearheading change within an organization, institution, or the government that impacted healthcare policy. The Nurse Leader and System Change Essay Example What driving forces led to the nurse leader’s success? What obstacles were encountered and how were they addressed?

The Nurse Leader and System Change

In order for an organization to remain competitive and retain competitive differentiation from its competitors, it must constantly review its practices and embrace change in a constant fashion. This change mindset must be part of the organizational culture such that all employees must be given orientation at recruitment to the effect that facilitating change will be a part of their responsibilities within the organization. However, the process of change requires robust leadership and in many healthcare organizations, this is provided by the nurse leader. This nurse leader is however not just any nurse leader. They must possess all the qualities of a transformational leader for them to fit the bill and to succeed in this endeavor. A transformational leader is one that inspires, motivates, empowers, and facilitates their team to perform beyond expectations (Asiri et al., 2016; Choi et al., 2016). The purpose of this paper is to look at a model nurse leader who succeeded in implementing a change project in a healthcare organization.  The Nurse Leader and System Change Essay Example

The Initiative and Its Impact on Healthcare Policy

The nurse leader in question was involved in leading a change initiative that saw the change from just advising heart failure patients on discharge alone; to a multidisciplinary educational intervention from admission to home visits. The reason for this change was that it had been observed that majority of elderly heart failure patients were getting readmitted again to the hospital within the first 30 days after discharge. On close scrutiny, it was found that the factors that led o these readmissions were all preventable. This meant that the readmissions themselves were preventable.

ORDER A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE

In order to align with evidence-based practice or EBP, the nurse leader had to perform clinical inquiry and find the best strategy to apply to prevent these 30-day readmissions. The search for evidence from databases showed that the most effective and efficient strategy to prevent 30-day readmissions in elderly heart failure patients is to design a nurse-led multidisciplinary educational intervention that is started right when the patient is admitted and continued even after the patent has been discharged (Charteris & Pounds, 2020; Dadosky et al., 2016).  The Nurse Leader and System Change Essay Example

The essence of all this was that the patient is made to be aware that they have a major role to play in self-care. This includes complying with medications, reporting medication adverse effects, and avoiding counterproductive behaviors such as smoking and the taking of alcohol. The educational process was led by the nurse leader and started when the patient was still an inpatient. As a matter of fact, it commenced immediately the patient was admitted and stabilized. It would then continue even at home when the patient had been discharged. This was enabled by the work of social workers and the harnessing of telehealth technology for follow-up. The impact of the above initiative on healthcare policy was that claims for reimbursement went down significantly. This enabled the patients to benefit more by not exhausting their Medicare coverage by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services or CMS. The Nurse Leader and System Change Essay Example

The Driving Forces that Led to the Nurse Leader’s Success and Obstacles

The driving forces that led to this particular nurse leader’s success were that she was first and foremost a transformational leader; and then the administrators provided the required resources. By being a transformational leader, she provided a conducive and welcoming work environment for nurses and allied workers who then felt motivated to deliver beyond expectations (Northouse, 2019; Sfantou et al., 2017). The obstacles she faced included some resistance from a few laggards and scarcity of the human resource. These were resolved by spending more time talking to the naysayers and skeptics to get their buy-in eventually. On staff shortage, a few locum nurses were hired to help with the implementation for the six-month duration of the initiative.

Conclusion

The nurse leader is instrumental in implementing change in healthcare organizations. They must however be transformational in leadership style and inspire their subordinates.

References

Asiri, S.A., Rohrer, W.W., Al-Surimi, K., Da’ar, O.O., & Ahmed, A. (2016). The association of leadership styles and empowerment with nurses’ organizational commitment in an acute health care setting: A cross-sectional study. BMC Nursing, 15(38), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-016-0161-7

Charteris, E.J., & Pounds, B. (2020). A nurse practitioner–led effort to reduce 30-day heart failure readmissions. Journal of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, 32(11), 738-744. https://doi.org/10.1097/JXX.0000000000000470

Choi, S.L., Goh, C.F., Adam, M.B.H., & Tan, O.K. (2016). Transformational leadership, empowerment, and job satisfaction: The mediating role of employee empowerment. Human Resources for Health, 14(1), 73. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12960-016-0171-2

Dadosky, A., Overbeck, H., Egnaczyk, G., Menon, S., Obrien, T., & Chung, E. (2016). The effect of enhanced patient education on 30-day heart failure readmission rates. Heart & Lung, 45(4), 372. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.hrtlng.2016.05.002

Northouse, P.G. (2019). Leadership: Theory and practice, 8^th ed. Sage Publications, Inc.

Sfantou, D.F., Laliotis, A., Patelarou, A.E., Sifaki-Pistolla, D., Matalliotakis, M., & Patelarou, E. (2017). Importance of leadership style towards quality of care measures in healthcare settings: A systematic review. Healthcare, 5(4), 1-17.  The Nurse Leader and System Change Essay Example  http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/healthcare5040073