Nursing Management: Factors that Influence Decision Making - Essay Example

HCI Interview

The role of the nurse manager is the execution of administrative tasks and offering oversight towards the nursing staff to ensure that the entire health facility is running on smoothly. From a general perspective, nurses are tasked to handle personnel matters and coordinating the existing staff-patient relationship (White & Bray, 2013). The position of a nurse manager serves as the link between front-line staff, other administrators as well as physicians. Nursing managers must have critical decision making and communication skills and the abilities to lead other people. The nurse manager is perceived as the core masterminds of the entire health facility. They are in charge of other administrators like supervisors and department heads. Nurse managers are also tasked to hire new employees, organize training for underperforming employees and also monitor the nurses to ensure they deliver quality services. In the light of the above information, and proper understanding of what a nurse manager is expected to do, this interview sought to evaluate external factors impacting the nurse manager’s decision making.

J.N has been the nurse manager in Aga Khan hospital for four years now. J.N looks happy and satisfied holding the position, and he pointed out that after the expiring of his term, he does not mind extending, or signing new term contract with the health centre. From his composure, when responding to the question, J.N depicted a high level of understanding his job requirements and experience in remaining responsible and accountable to what is called his job roles. During the interview, J. N began by revealing his roles and then, later, factors influencing the nurse manager decision making.

His role as the manager includes management of staff, drafting of the treatment plan, scheduling of various activities supposed to be taking place in school and developing plans for the nurses and the facility at large. For one to successfully execute these tasks, J.N notes that you must have strong communication skills, integrated with strong leadership skills. The two are essential in coordinating resources, and they help one achieve the set goals easily. Throughout his time in the facility as the manager, his eloquence ability has been vital in ensuring that everything goes on well. Eloquence helps in a striking decision which enhances the balance between staff and what they are supposed to be doing and hence facilitating goal attainment.

In his time as the nursing managers, the following external factors have been significantly influencing his decision-making process—the first one issues within the environment. J.N points out that environmental issues are the existing legislation, economy and patients’ reactions towards the services being delivered. He reveals that the legislation in place has formulated so many policies which limits one from the freedom of making decisions. This means that for a decision to be made, one has to put into consideration so many issues, which at times consumer a lot of time and that they are costly. Patients reactions to the services they receive from the nurses is another factor which affects the decision that is to be made. Of the patients raise more complains about the service being delivered, as the manager, you have to devise decisions which will help address the situation. If the patients are satisfied, the manager can also come up with decisions that will uphold the services being offered. J.N clarifies that during his early days in this position, he experienced a lot of difficulties in trying to make decisions which will enhance customer satisfaction.

Second external factor affecting decision making in his position and rank are the existing issues within the organization. He classifies these issues into three: procedures and policies, hierarchy in the organization and organizational politics. Although there are other issues, J.N is confident that these three are outstanding and they present serious problems to the organization. Aga Khan health centre is made up of formalized procedures and policies which are developed to serve different purposes like resolving common problems. The facility comprises of a formalized disciplinary committee. These policies define what needs to be done at any given time. The hierarchy of the organization also impacts different activities. J.N says that the different levels of management preset in the organization impacts what need to be done (Zardo, Collie & Livingstone, 2014). These levels of management have different degrees of authority in defining which decisions are to be made. As the manager, his hands are tied towards the extent he will make the decisions. Although he is in charge of the nurses in the facility and that he has the authority to make certain decisions, he cannot formulate decisions for the overall organizations. He is subject to limitations.

Perception issues can be defined as how an individual interprets a certain environment. Perceptions can be treated from a general perspective, that is, the perception of the facility, a group of people like a team. An example is the gathering of information when from people and groups when there is a need to address a certain problem (Zardo, Collie & Livingstone, 2014). The perception, in this case, plays an essential role in defining the sought of information and how relevant the information is. Perceptions can be related to the health policy, upon decisions, the impact of regulatory agencies in decision making and also perceptions of health care financing on decisions made.

There exist perceptions that health policies can assist in subjective or objective decision making within healthcare facilities. Policies meant to assist senior management offices are subjective (Oh, 2017). This is because such decisions depend on several factors intending to ensure everything below the senior positions works on smooth. For example, the presence of work-life balancing policy helped in the decisions which firm will make about working staff who have families.

Health regulatory bodies have significant impacts on the decisions that managers and relevant authorities would be making at any given time. For a decision to be arrived at in the healthcare centre, the decision must comply with regulations in place. Otherwise, compliance issues might end up arising. Senior bodies and senior individuals in the healthcare facility who have the authority of making decisions must have a better understanding of the existing policy (Oh, 2017). There are high perceptions from individuals that existing policies are in place to fine-tune the decisions made and ensure that everything goes on well. It is through the regulatory policies that the decisions made will be ethical and will not be impacting any person negatively.

Finance and capital capabilities in any given firm are key determinants of the direction to be taken in the organization. Any decision made is attached to a certain financial element. This is the reason as to why healthcare financing impacts any form of the decision made (Dietrich, 2016). A decision made might need new resources to be implemented and modification of the existing structure to ensure that it complies with what the decision requires. All these can be achieved through financing. Therefore, decisions made must be in line with the financing capabilities of the healthcare facility.