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Leadership Roles in Developing Conducive Environments in Nursing Practice
Example 1: Challenges/Risks in Patient Satisfaction
Access Barriers
One significant challenge a leader might face related to patient satisfaction is addressing access barriers to health services. Jacobs et al. (2018) highlight that these barriers can exist in various forms, including financial constraints, geographical limitations, or even socio-cultural barriers. Overcoming these barriers necessitates comprehensive planning and strategic resource allocation, emphasizing equity and inclusivity.
Adapting to Telehealth: The integration of telehealth and virtual consultations in the healthcare landscape presents another challenge. As Slightam et al. (2020) underline, while video visits offer a myriad of benefits such as increased accessibility and convenience, they also bring forth concerns regarding patient privacy, the adequacy of care delivered via virtual mediums, and technology-related issues. Leaders must ensure that telehealth implementations do not compromise the quality of care while addressing these concerns.
Collaborative Approach for Identity Alignment
Interprofessional Collaboration: To achieve identity alignment between the functional and organizational levels, one effective collaborative approach is fostering interprofessional collaboration. Lutfiyya et al. (2019) emphasize that interprofessional education and practice have become central to healthcare reform, enhancing patient outcomes, and driving collaborative patient-centered care. Such an approach not only streamlines care delivery but also cultivates a shared sense of purpose, ensuring both patient and employee satisfaction.
Conclusion
The constantly evolving landscape of healthcare presents leaders with numerous challenges and opportunities, especially in the realms of patient and employee satisfaction. Effective leadership must prioritize equitable access to care and strategically embrace innovations like telehealth while ensuring quality and privacy. Furthermore, fostering collaborative approaches, particularly interprofessional collaboration, is essential for aligning individual and organizational identities. By proactively addressing these challenges and leveraging collaboration, leaders can craft an environment conducive to both patient and employee satisfaction, striking a balance in the intricate economics of nursing practice.
References
Jacobs, B., Ir, P., Bigdeli, M., Annear, P. L., & Van Damme, W. (2018). Addressing access barriers to health services: an analytical framework for selecting appropriate interventions in low-income Asian countries. Health Policy and Planning, 33(4), 570-580.
Slightam, C., Gregory, A. J., Hu, J., Jacobs, J., Gurmessa, T., Kimerling, R., … & Blonigen, D. M. (2020). Patient perceptions of video visits using veterans affairs telehealth tablets: Survey study. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 22(4), e15682.
Lutfiyya, M. N., Brandt, B. F., & Delaney, C. W. (2019). Setting a research agenda for interprofessional education and collaborative practice in the context of United States health system reform. Journal of Interprofessional Care, 33(1), 103-110.
Response 1:
Response to raymonda
In these current times. being a leader in healthcare can be quite challenging and detrimental to one’s mental health. Two of the biggest challenges leaders face when focusing on patient satisfaction are staff reluctance to change and neglecting one’s self-care. According to a study conducted by Marufu et al., 2021 staff believe the following should be of high priority for staff retention: Nursing leadership and management, education and career advancement, organizational environment, staffing levels, professional issues, support at work, personal influences, demographic influences, and financial remuneration. Unfortunately, patient satisfaction can overshadow these demands causing them to become decreased or completely neglected. For example, some organizations believe that in order to satisfy more ‘paying’ customers (patients) they must spend more money to increase HCAPS scores; resulting in the amount of finances available for staffing to take a negative hit. Let us be genuine with one another, we’ve all experienced negative emotions regarding measures taken to complete the objective of patient satisfaction. In the midst of the leadership team being responsible for all of this, they are at an increased risk of neglecting their self-care. Self-efficacy, self-esteem, and self-direction are a part of one’s self-care while in leadership (Jenkins et al., 2020). Neglect in these areas can cause symptoms of depression and anxiety in an individual in a leadership position.
What an individual in leadership can do to help lessen the negative blow of fulfilling their duties is to effectively communicate and collaborate with other staff members. Speaking from experience and stories that were shared with me, no one likes to be kept in the dark about the way their organization decides to go when trying to accomplish a main goal or objective. Leadership will progress further and quicker when they effectively communicate with their staff and interpersonal peers. Partaking in effective communication allows for both parties to be heard and negotiations to be made.
References
Jenkins, G. T., Shafer, M. S., & Janich, N. (2020). Critical issues in leadership development for peer support specialists. Community Mental Health Journal, 56(6), 1085–1094. https://doi-org.
Marufu, T. C., Collins, A., Vargas, L., Gillespie, L., & Almghairbi, D. (2021). Factors influencing retention among hospital nurses: systematic review. British Journal of Nursing, 30(5), 302–308. https://doi-org.
2. Response to Tonika
There are numerous issues that a nurse leader has to contend with and urgently address when it comes to patient satisfaction, including barriers to healthcare services access as well as adoption and utilization of telehealth as stated in your post. It has been noted that patient-centered care demands improvement of patient experiences that ultimately lead to patient satisfaction (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2020). According to Nkrumah and Abekah-Nkrumah (2019), some of the patient- centered care barriers to healthcare access include leadership conceptualization of patient-centered care, lack of clearly defined goals and adequate activities for patient-centered care, communication gaps, challenges, financial constraints, ownership of healthcare facility, and degree of centralization of decision-making.
Similarly, integration of telehealth also poses a challenge to patient satisfaction. Arguably, despite the far-reaching benefits of health technology in patient care, it has on the other hand been faced with legal, regulatory, and reimbursement barriers that have hindered its widespread adoption in healthcare settings (Gajarawala & Pelkowski, 2021). In order to nursing leadership to improve patient satisfaction, there is need for interprofessional collaboration in patient care in nursing practice as it goes a long way in improving relationships between patients and their caregivers, care coordination, and better health outcome.
References
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. (2020). Section 2: Why improve patient experience? https://www.ahrq.gov/cahps/quality-improvement/improvement-guide/2-why-improve/index.html
Gajarawala, S. N., & Pelkowski, J. N. (2021). Telehealth benefits and barriers. Journal for Nurse Practitioners, 17(2), 218-221. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nurpra.2020.09.013.
Nkrumah, J., & Abekah-Nkrumah, G. (2019). Facilitators and barriers of patient-centered care at the organizational-level: A study of three district hospitals in the central region of Ghana. BMC Health Services Research, 19(1): 900. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-019-4748-z
Response 3:
In your post, you note a healthcare leader’s self-care is of paramount importance for his or her optimal performance in ensuring patient satisfaction. It has been argued that the positive impacts of suitable self-care among healthcare professionals encompass enhanced physical, psychological, and emotional health (Søvold et al., 2021). Self-care enhances a nurse leader’s compassion and empathy towards others, including nursing staff and patients (Purdue Global, 2023). Therefore, self-care enables nursing professionals to offer sustainable patient care, marked by heightened compassion, responsiveness, efficacy, and understanding.
In nursing practice, a leader’s support plays a crucial role in influencing patient satisfaction as he or she tends to shape staff experience, especially in regards to decision-making and work pressure (West et al., 2022). Largely, patients’ care is dependent on the health, well-being, and effectiveness of the healthcare workforce, which in turn, is determined by a leader’s support in ensuring conducive work environments.
References
Purdue Global. (2023). The importance of self-care for nurses and how to put a plan in place. https://www.purdueglobal.edu/blog/nursing/self-care-for-nurses/
Søvold, L. E., Naslund, J. A., Kousoulis, A. A., Saxena, S., Qoronfleh, M. W., Grobler, C., & Münter, L. (2021). Prioritizing the mental health and well-being of healthcare workers: An urgent global public health priority. Frontiers in Public Health, 9: 679397. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.679397
West, T. H. R., Daher, P., Dawson, J. F., Lyubovnikova, J., Buttigieg, S. C., West, M. A. (2022). The relationship between leader support, staff influence over decision making, work pressure and patient satisfaction: A cross-sectional analysis of NHS datasets in England. BMJ Open, 12: e052778. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2021-052778
