Effective Approaches in Leadership and Management Essay Paper

Effective Approaches in Leadership and Management Description of the selected issue
The issue of concern is nurse staffing ratio. To be more precise, nurse staffing ratio is a proposal that calls for enforced nurse-to-patient ratios in the different departments of a medical facility based on anticipated acuity and needs as reflected by past trends. For instance, the medical facility could have a three-to-one patient-to-nurse ratio for the emergency room and one-to-one patient-to-nurse ratio for the intensive care unit. The issue is of concern to nurse leaders and managers because it requires them to flexibly enforce the nurse staffing ratio based on the identified unique patient needs. This concern is further heightened by the fact that facilities with too many patients could cause the nurse leaders to become stressed and make medical mistakes as the face hectic patient panels (Driscoll et al., 2018). In addition, the issue is complicated by its implications for patient safety and quality care. Enforcing nurse staffing ratio would improve patient safety and quality care through enabling nurses to attend to fewer patients. Still, it presents concerns by limiting patient care access and incurring high costs by limiting patient volumes as nurses can only attend to a limited number of patients (Driscoll et al., 2018).  Effective Approaches in Leadership and Management Essay Paper The mentioned concerns are factors that nurse leaders and managers must evaluate even as they determine nurse staffing ratios.
Professional standards of practice
Professional practice standards are intended to direct and maintain clinically competent and safe nursing practice. They describe the competent level of care at each step of the nursing process, reflecting the achievable and desired performance levels against which the actual performance of nurses is compared. In this case, the focus of the nurse leader/manager would be on ensuring that nursing services have autonomy and accountability. Autonomy refers to the freedom and authority for nurses to act independently by controlling their practice as it applied to both actions and decisions. Accountability refers to the state of being answerable and responsible for actions undertaken. The two (autonomy and accountability) are important for the present issue as they ensure that nurses use their full complement of knowledge and skills, thus making efficient use of the available nurses and optimizing their deployment (Murray, 2017).

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In addition, there is a need to link the issue (nurse staffing ratio) to six standards of practice. Firstly, it is linked to assessment by ensuring that nurses can collect comprehensive information on each patient’s situation or health. Secondly, it is linked to diagnosis through ensuring that nurses can accurately evaluate the collected data for diagnostic purposes. Thirdly, it is linked to outcome identification through ensuring that the nurse can identify the expected outcome for an individualized care plan. Fourthly, it is linked to planning through ensuring that nurses can develop plans prescribing strategies and alternatives to achieve the required outcomes. Fifthly, it is linked to implementation through ensuring that nurses implement the identified care plan. Finally, it is linked to evaluation through requiring that nurses evaluate the care progress (Glembocki & Fitzpatrick, 2013).
Different roles of nursing leaders and nursing managers
Nurse leaders and managers play an integral role in encouraging nurses (as members of interprofessional teams) to understand the organizational dynamics with the intention of enabling better integration and implementation of policies to improve care outcomes. In addition, they facilitate evidence-based practice as they focus on identifying the importance of diverse and collaborative teams. This requires that they have the right combination of organizational awareness and clinical acumen, as well as build strong and collaborative interprofessional partnerships as they lead complex change. Besides that, they are responsible for stepping forward and leading nurses to developing definitions, outcome measures, and innovative change to promote patient safety and quality care. The discussed roles require that nurse leaders and managers lead and partner with other members of the interprofessional team (Murray, 2017).
Ensuring professionalism
Nurse leaders and managers can ensure professionalisms through establishing practice standards for the facility detailing achievement benchmarks for the nurses based on desired outcomes. These standards would include integrity, teamwork, professional responsibility, compassionate interactions with patients, and positive attitude. In addition, the practice guidelines would include core components of professionalism such as upholding reputation, honesty, high standards of care, respect for dignity, individual treatment, and ensuring that care comes first (Dahlkemper, 2018).
Appropriate leadership style
Nurse leaders and managers must apply a transformational leadership style. This involves using innovative and creative approaches in order to address the issue of nurse staffing ratio since this creates a respected and dynamic environment. This requires them to share their vision of excellence, communicate effectives for a patient-centric environment, and be visible within the clinical units. Their leadership approach must support innovative ideas, inspire them to want more, transform the team, and promote interprofessional collaboration. This requires much determination and courage. In addition, they must recognize that patient safety and quality cannot be dictated from the top. Rather, these are overarching cultures that must be nurtured and cultivated so that all nurse personnel understand their significance and importance. Overall, the nurse leaders and managers must be able to role-model courage, collaboration, clear communication and excellence to help bring nurses into alignment with the issue of nurse staffing ratio, and ensure the best possible care outcomes (Dahlkemper, 2018).
In this assignment, you will be writing a paper describing the differing approaches of nursing leaders and managers to issues in practice. To complete this assignment, do the following:

The issue topic will be nurse staffing ratios.

1. Select an issue from the following list: bullying, unit closers and restructuring, floating, nurse turnover, nurse staffing ratios, use of contract employees (i.e., registry and travel nurses), or magnet designation.
2. Describe the selected issue. Discuss how it impacts quality of care and patient safety in the setting in which it occurs.
3. Discuss how professional standards of practice should be demonstrated in this situation to help rectify the issue or maintain professional conduct.
4. Explain the differing roles of nursing leaders and nursing managers in this instance and discuss the different approaches they take to address the selected issue and promote patient safety and quality care. Support your rationale by using the theories, principles, skills, and roles of the leader versus manager described in your readings.
5. Discuss what additional aspects mangers and leaders would need to initiate in order to ensure professionalism throughout diverse health care settings while addressing the selected issue.
6. Describe a leadership style that would best address the chosen issue. Explain why this style could be successful in this setting.

Use at least three peer-reviewed journal articles other than those presented in your text or provided in the course.

Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide

Effective Approaches in Leadership and Management Essay Paper