Leadership Strategy
As a nurse, you serve an important role in identifying strategies to effectively manage health care resources and in leading health care quality improvement. You must be able to decide what leadership style or strategy to apply in a given situation to achieve an effective resolution of the issue. Read the following two scenarios and select one to focus on in this Discussion. Consider the leadership style or strategy that might be most effective in the scenario you selected.
Scenario 1
You work in a for-profit nursing home, with about 100 beds, on a 20-bed unit that is largely patients with Alzheimer’s disease. Your patient mix is predominantly Medicare and Medicaid patients. Your nursing home is part of a larger system that includes a major medical center, as well as VNA, outpatient dialysis, and a fully integrated network. Your nurse manager is getting feedback from the hospital that your nursing home is sending too many patients to the ED who really don’t need to go. How would you go about figuring out what could be done at the nursing home to prevent avoidable ED visits?
Scenario 2
You’ve been associated with an outpatient cardiology clinic that is part of a large academic medical center. Your patients are mostly charity care and managed Medicaid. Most have a prescription plan, but none have a “family doctor” and use the clinic (and the ED) regularly. Most are unfamiliar with their medications and do not have the resources for care coordination in their family/social network. About 25 CHF patients have been “lovingly,” but inappropriately, called “frequent fliers” because of their inability to manage their own care, their frequent visits to the ED, and their “one night stays” paid at the observation rate. As a staff nurse in this clinic, describe the strategies you could devise for you and your fellow staff nurses targeting these 25 patients. Find at least one article from the professional literature to corroborate your recommendations.
THE ASSIGNMENT IS BELOW AND ATTACHED IN THE FILE IS POST A AND B THAT NEED TO BE RESPONDED TO:
Read two or more of your colleagues’ postings from the Discussion question (support with evidence if indicated).
Respond with a comment that asks for clarification, provides support for, or contributes additional information to two or more of your colleagues’ postings.
Expert Solution Preview
Introduction:
As a medical professor, it is crucial to educate medical college students about effective leadership strategies in the healthcare system. Nurses play a vital role in managing resources and improving healthcare quality. Therefore, it is essential for nursing students to understand different leadership styles and strategies to address various situations effectively. In this assignment, we will discuss two scenarios and explore the most effective leadership styles in each.
Answer:
Scenario 1:
If I were working in a for-profit nursing home, where the hospital is receiving feedback about the nursing home sending too many patients to the emergency department, I would apply a transformational leadership style. This style involves inspiring and motivating employees to work towards a common goal to achieve organizational success.
To prevent avoidable ED visits, I would start by conducting a comprehensive assessment of the nursing home’s patient care policies and procedures. I would then implement changes that would address the issues that send patients to the ED unnecessarily. This could include staff education and training on how to identify and manage conditions that don’t require hospitalization effectively.
By using transformational leadership, I could inspire the nursing home staff and other stakeholders to work collaboratively and identify solutions that would address the issue effectively.
Scenario 2:
If I were working in an outpatient cardiology clinic that has several patients with congestive heart failure (CHF), often referred to as ‘frequent fliers,’ I would apply a situational leadership style. This style is effective in situations where the leader adapts their leadership approach to meet the needs of the situation or the task at hand.
In this scenario, I would work with the clinic staff to provide education and resources to the 25 CHF patients. By providing such resources, we could reduce the frequency of patients visiting the ED and improve their self-management skills. I would also encourage patients to use the cardiology clinic as their primary healthcare provider, which can reduce the overcrowding in the ED.
One article that supports this approach is a study by Lee et al. (2017) titled “A Nurse-Led Transitional Care Program for Patients With Congestive Heart Failure.” The study suggests that a nurse-led transitional care program can help patients with CHF self-manage their condition and reduce the frequency of readmissions. By implementing a similar program in the outpatient cardiology clinic, we can improve the quality of care and reduce the frequency of ED visits by CHF patients.
References:
Lee, H., Song, Y., Lim, H., Kim, K., Kim, S., & Kim, Y. (2017). A Nurse-Led Transitional Care Program for Patients With Congestive Heart Failure. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 49(5), 506-514. doi: 10.1111/jnu.12301
