The Essay: Role Of Leadership In Clinical Practice.

Leadership Skills and Qualities

In this paper, the discussion is based on the role of leadership in clinical practice. According to the definition of clinical leadership, this is a process of encouraging improvement and innovation of care procedures in both individual care practices as well as organizational systems (Levett- Jones et al., 2020). The main aim of clinical leadership is to enhance patient safety and care quality. In this context, knowledge and skills regarding leadership have a significant role. Nurses are responsible for providing proper and safe care to every patient. According to several studies it has been mentioned that nursing is one of the busiest professions. In this respect, effective leadership is one of the significant ways to provide the desired care to patients. This paper will discuss 4 different aspects of leadership, including leadership skills and qualities, managing conflict, prioritizing safety issues, as well as delegation and supervision in clinical practice through addressing the presented case study of Kim and Alex.

Leadership qualities and skills are significant in the nursing profession. There are some basic skills that a leader should have while working with their team members. Among them, one of the significant skills is communication. Communication between a leader and team members has an important role in providing safe and quality care (Day, 2020). Sharing information between nursing team members is another important activity; a miscommunication in understanding the responsibilities can lead to patient harm. In the nursing profession, healthcare professionals often use jargon in order to simplify their communication process. According to the case information, it has been found that the team leader Bronwyn performed her duties very well. She took time and explained the terms that may be difficult for Kim to understand while providing care. Hence, it can be stated that the leader expressed her skill of communication as well as her respect towards her team members. Besides that, another two important skills of leadership are critical thinking and mentorship, which are also linked with this case scenario. Such as Kim has been allocated with Alex, who is an enrolled nurse. Enrolled nurses also have a significant role in providing quality care services (Australian College of Nursing (ACN)., 2020). Through critical thinking, the leader appointed Alex, as it can be difficult for Kim to maintain her duties alone. The NMBA standard 1, which is about critical thinking and analyzing nursing practice, is applicable in this case scenario. Besides that, in this context, the NMBA standard 6.3 is also applicable. According to the scope of practice of the enrolled nurse, the leader correctly delegates areas of practice to them. However, the skill of mentorship is not present in the case study as a responsible nursing leader should mentor her team member to make proper care plans for the eight individual patients, as there is a lack of staff at that moment.

Conflicts Are Very Common In Nursing Profession. According To The Presented Case Information It Has Been Found That The Rn And En Were Responsible For Providing care to eight individual patients. As per the condition of the patients, all of them need urgent care or supervision (Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia NMBA., 2019). Such as Patients Roy Ocean and Maxine Beach, both of them need care at 5 pm. Hence, there is a high chance of developing conflict in taking decisions or actions in the care procedure. In this context, conflicts resolving skills are important, such as the nurses should need to perform a correct assessment of the whole situation and then make a proper priority list as per the urgency of care. Active listening and proactivity are important in order to manage conflicts in nursing care (Schwartz, 2019). In this context, the care providers may follow the relevant NMBA nursing standards. Standard 4, specifically 4.1 must be followed as per the standard and performs thorough as well as culturally appropriate assessments. As well as 4.2 and 4.4, collect accurate and relevant information to inform practice using a variety of evaluation methodologies. Identifies and evaluates the resources available to help with planning (Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia, NMBA, 2016b). Besides that, the most significant and relevant NMBA standard in this context is standard 5, making a proper care plan. More specifically 5.2 is significant in this case scenario. Collaboratively make plans for proper nursing practice involving relevant people until all objectives, scenarios,  priorities, actions, alternatives, timeframes as well as results are agreed upon. In addition, the EN should follow all the NMBA standards of EN while providing care to the patients (Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA), 2016a).

Managing Conflict

According to NMBA standard 1.6, which states that one of the major responsibilities of EN is to identify and explain the accountabilities of EN for the features of the delegated care who have been working in partnership with RN and multidisciplinary health care team (Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia, 2016a). In this case, Alex who is an experienced EN should work with Kim who is RN for looking after the patients in the rooms. In case of Maxine, since she would need assistance in refilling the syringe of IV infusion of Flolan and Kim has never done this before, she should seek help from Alex in for the same. Although, Kim has been asked to look after the single room patients, but she should refrain from undertaking the refilling of the syringe due to lack of experience of the same as mentioned in NMBA standard 1.7. Kim has limitation for refilling the syringe and so according to NMBA standard 6.2 for RN, she should practice within her scope of practice and so she should recognise her limitations in her practice and seek help from Alex who is experienced as EN and has been pursuing the degree of RN (Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia, 2019).

According to NMBA standard 6.1 which states that a RN should provide complete safe as well as quality practice for achieving agreed goal and outcome, both Kim and Alex should provide quality practice to the patient. Athena Swann should be closely monitored since she has several comorbidities and prescribe medicine for reducing her groin pain as per the NMBA standard 7.2 for RN that states to revise the plan as per the evaluation of the patient’s condition. According to NMBA standard 7.1 for RN, the outcome and the results of monitoring is to be evaluated in order to get expected outcome from the care plan. As stated in NMBA standard 6.5, both Alex and RN should prioritize their workload and manage the time for providing care to the patients allocated to them (Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia, 2016b).

According to NMBA standard 6.3 designated for RN, since Athena has been complaining about pain in groin and have recently undergone angiography and angioplasty, Alex should consult with the cardiology clinical nurse consultant for evaluating her pain. Madison is not resent in her bed and is missing for quite sometimes. Since, Alex would not be able to look for her as she is busy with other patients. According to NMBA standard 7.3 (Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia, 2016b) she might seek help from PCA Fei-Li, who is present there and has been floating across the rooms. Since Peter has been feeling discomfort due to malignant pleural effusion and chest drain and has not been seen by the oncology team, Alex should inform the PCA so that he might be shifted to the oncology ward for providing safe and quality practice as stated in NMBA standard 6.1. According to NMBA standard 6.4, an EN should provide timely direction and effective supervision for ensuring safe and correct delegated practice and so Alex might supervise Kim while refilling the syringe of Maxine. According to NMBA standard 7.1 an EN should assemble data and the document, health as well as functional status of the patient and therefore, Alex should record the health status of Athena and Peter for further evaluation. Again, according to NMBA standard 5.3 which states about documenting, evaluating and modifying the plan, Kim should record Rajiv’s condition as instructed for evaluation and modification of the care plan if required (Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia, 2016a).   

Conclusion

From the above discussion it can be concluded that, clinical leadership can be defined as the process for encouraging the improvement and the innovation of the procedures used in medical care for individual and organizational systems. The leadership skills are considered to be significant for nursing profession. Managing conflicts in nursing profession are a major role for the nursing staffs. The RN and EN must abide by the NMBA standards which would ensure patient safety and expected health outcome. In case the practice is out of their scope of they are not able to assist more than one patient simultaneously, they might engage other delegates in the same so that the patients receive proper care and monitoring of their condition.

References

Australian College of Nursing (ACN). (2020) Unregulated health care workers, position statement.https://www.acn.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/position-statement-unregulated-health-care-workers.pdf 

Day, G. (2020)  Understanding organizational culture in the hospital setting. In Chang, E., & Daly, J. (Eds). Transitions in Nursing: Preparing for professional practice, (5th ed), Elsevier

Levett- Jones, T., Palmer, L., Wilson, A. (2020) Becoming part of the Team. In Chang, E., & Daly, J. (Eds). Transitions in Nursing: Preparing for professional practice, (5th ed), Elsevier

Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA). (2019). Supervision guidelines for nursing and midwifery.

https://www.nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au/Registration-and-Endorsement/Supervised-practice.aspx

Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA). (2016b). Registered nurse standards for practice.

https://www.nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au/Codes-Guidelines-Statements/Professional-standards.aspx

Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA).(2016a). Enrolled nurse standards for practice.

https://www.nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au/Codes-Guidelines-Statements/Professional-standards/enrolled-nurse-standards-for-practice.aspx

Schwartz, S.(2019). Educating the nurse of the future: report of the independent review of nursing education. Australian Government Department of Health.

https://www.health.gov.au/resources/publications/educating-the-nurse-of-the-future