Effective Leadership For Safe Medication Administration In Healthcare Essay

Reasons For Adopting The Fully Electronic Medication System

Efficient leadership is essential in the field of health care. Nurses at all levels of medical attention such as midwives and graduates should possess leadership skills. Transitions in health organizations are essential as they improve the quality of service delivery. Hospital administration should implement change strategies that ensure patient safety. An innovation such as electronic medication system enhances the safety of medication administration (Westbrook et al., 2015). The innovation eliminates clinical errors in health facilities. This essay explores the importance of appropriate leadership by looking at the clinical scenario. The write-up also explains the reasons for adopting the electronic medication system. The essay will also apply Lewin’s model to outline a plan for change. Additionally, the paper will discuss an appropriate leadership skill, evaluate the choices and explore resistance and solutions.

The adoption of an electronic medical system is beneficial to the caregivers and the patients. The system ensures accuracy in medication administration; hence, improving the quality of medical attention. The two hundred bed hospital has been having an escalation of minor medical errors over the last three years. The full implementation of the system eliminates the clinical errors; thus, ensuring patient safety (Debono et al., 2017). The system helps nurses as it improves their working morale due to the reduction in errors. The reputation of the health organization escalates due to the provision of error-free treatment (Kangasniemi, Pakkanen, & Korhonen, 2015). Therefore, the hospital should adopt the electronic system.  Effective Leadership For Safe Medication Administration In Healthcare Essay 

The model has three essential steps that the health organization can use to transform medication from a manual to an electronic system. Unfreezing is the initial stage in enacting change in any organization according to the model (Oppenheimer, Warburton, & Carey, 2015). The nurse leader should prepare the nurses and other caregivers to accept the essence of the impending changes. The leader should explain the limitations of the current system before introducing the electronic system. In the provided scenario, the leader can begin the process of change by calling for a meeting to explain the elevation of medical errors. The head nurse should provide the statistics of the clinical mistakes over the past three years. The unfreezing process can take seven to ten weeks, and it helps to change the caregiver’s perspectives.

The change process follows the Unfreezing step in the Lewin’s model. At this stage, individuals start to resolve the uncertainty that accompanies the need for change (Hossan, 2015). Individuals begin to believe in the new system and direct their actions to support a new idea. In the case scenario, the head nurse should convince the nurses that the new system reduces medication errors. The leader should also advise the caregivers on the appropriate actions that can support the implementation of the electronic system. The head nurse should explain how the caregivers benefit from the electronic system. The process of change requires twelve weeks to convince nurses to embrace the system.

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Lewin’s Model-A Plan Of Change

The last step in the Lewin cycle of change is the refreeze step. An organization refreezes after the employees have accepted and internalized the new working methods (Rosenbaum, More, & Steane, 2018). Institutional heads should incorporate the changes into the culture of the organization. Additional measures are also necessary to ensure that the differences remain permanently in the routine of an institution. The head nurse should make the electronic system the only method of administering medication to the patients. The health organization should reward nurses who excel in the application of the new approach to motivate the other caregivers. The refreezing step should take two weeks.

An appropriate style of leadership is necessary for the implementation of Lewin’s change model. Transformational leadership is a style in which a leader cooperates with a team to implement the required changes in an organization (Cheng, Bartram, Karimi, & Leggat, 2016). The style of leadership involves the identification of the areas that need change and developing strategies to effect the change. Third step consists in embracing the change and discarding the old methods. Transformational leadership is useful in the phase of unfreezing as the nurse leader helps the nurses to appreciate the increasing medical errors. The style is also essential at the step of change; since the head, the nurse explains the essence of the electronic system. Transformational leaders find an easy time in the refreezing process due to the implementation of teamwork.

Nurse leaders can also apply autocratic leadership skills to implement change at the health facility. Authoritarian leadership is when the leader controls all the decisions. However, the leader considers a few ideas from the members of the team (Cope, & Murray, 2017). The group leaders make decisions on every process and work methods in the institution. Effective Leadership For Safe Medication Administration In Healthcare Essay  The leadership style is appropriate in instances where an organization requires an urgent resolution to implement changes. The unfreezing phase involves convincing members about the need to discard the manual methods of medication and embrace the electronic system. The stage takes a lot of time; hence, the Autocratic style would shorten the duration of decision making. The change step is also time-consuming; however, the refreezing phase requires little time. Therefore, an autocratic style is essential in the first two phases of the Lewin’s model.

In the case scenario, the transformative style is more appropriate than the autocratic leadership style. Autocratic leadership requires small groups who lack appropriate leadership qualities (Vaismoradi, Griffiths, Turunen, & Jordan, 2016). However, the two hundred bed capacity hospital contains many patients, caregivers, and the head nurses. Therefore, the teamwork in transformative leadership requires the head nurse to work together with other caregivers to implement the electronic system. Autocratic style of leadership imposes changes on members of staff; hence, can lower the morale of working.  However, transformational leadership values the ideas of the caregivers in the process of transformation. Therefore, the lead nurse should apply the transformative leadership skills when convincing care providers to embrace the electronic medication system.

Leadership Styles

Some factors can resist the plan of change in the health facility. The first aspect is inadequate training for the members of staff on the application of the electrical system of drug administration. The rush in training the nurses on how to administer drugs using the new method makes them hesitate in embracing the change (Cooper et al., 2015). The second resistance to the plan of adjustment is inadequate time to adjust to the changes. The hospital administration can allocate little time for system adaptation. Therefore, insufficient time and improper training can hamper the plan of reform.

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The health fraternity can solve the impediments of change in two ways. Firstly, the lead nurse should conduct adequate training in the application of the electronic system. Electronically-versed health personnel should do the training which should take more than seven weeks. The trainers should address the concerns of nurses and convince the caregivers on the essence of the new system (Roughead, Semple, & Rosenfeld, 2016). The second way of resolving the barriers of change is to allocate adequate time for adjustment. The duration should be between ten to twelve weeks. Therefore, a proper change plan requires sufficient time and adequate training.

Conclusion

A full electronic medication system improves the quality of medication administration in the two hundred bed hospital. The adoption of the system reduces the clinical errors that have been escalating in the health facility for the past three years. Lewin’s model is an appropriate change planner for the implementation of the new system of medication. The model involves convincing the nurses about the essence of discarding the manual medication for the new method. The significant steps in the model include unfreezing, change, and refreezing phase. Transformational leadership style is appropriate than the autocratic due to the need for teamwork in the implementation of change. Adequate time and training ensure efficient planning of change

References

Cheng, C., Bartram, T., Karimi, L., & Leggat, S. (2016). Transformational leadership and social identity as predictors of team climate, perceived quality of care, burnout, and turnover intention among nurses. Personnel Review, 45(6), 1200-1216.

Cooper, S., Cant, R. P., Bogossian, F., Bucknall, T., & Hopmans, R. (2015). Doing the right thing at the right time: Assessing responses to patient deterioration in electronic simulation scenarios using Course-of-Action analysis. CIN: Computers, Informatics, Nursing, 33(5), 199-207.

Cope, V., & Murray, M. (2017). Leadership styles in nursing. Nursing Standard (2014+), 31(43), 61.

Debono, D., Taylor, N., Lipworth, W., Greenfield, D., Travaglia, J., Black, D., & Braithwaite, J. (2017). Applying the theoretical domains framework to identify barriers and targeted interventions to enhance nurses’ use of electronic medication management systems in two Australian hospitals. Implementation Science, 12(1), 42.

Hossan, C. (2015). Applicability of Lewin’s change management theory in Australian local government. International Journal of Business and Management, 10(6), 53.

Kangasniemi, M., Pakkanen, P., & Korhonen, A. (2015). Professional ethics in nursing: an integrative review. Journal of advanced nursing, 71(8), 1744-1757.

Oppenheimer, M., Warburton, J., & Carey, J. (2015). The next ‘new idea: the challenges of organizational change, decline, and renewal in Australian Meals on Wheels. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 26(4), 1550-1569.

Rosenbaum, D., More, E., & Steane, P. (2018). Planned organizational change management: Forward to the past? An exploratory literature review. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 31(2), 286-303.

Roughead, E. E., Semple, S. J., & Rosenfeld, E. (2016). The extent of medication errors and adverse drug reactions throughout the patient journey in acute care in Australia. International journal of evidence-based healthcare, 14(3-4), 113-122.

Vaismoradi, M., Griffiths, P., Turunen, H., & Jordan, S. (2016). Transformational leadership in nursing and medication safety education: a discussion paper. Journal of nursing management, 24(7), 970-980.  Effective Leadership For Safe Medication Administration In Healthcare Essay