Managing Group of People - Essay Example

?TOPIC: Nursing Leadership TABLE OF CONTENT INTRODUCTION LITERATURE REVIEW Cost of Nursing Care: Care Delivery Approach: Quality Measurement: CONCLUSION KEYWORDS: Nursing Leadership Cost of Nursing care, Care delivery, Effective Communication skills. Introduction: Leadership in any context requires a great deal of managing things, group of people or individual towards a common goal through motivation, determination and commitment. Nursing leadership is a far tougher and requires vigilance towards each individual task because number of patients’ outcome is at stake. Nursing leadership needs to manage group of people, number of different activities and situations simultaneously. To fulfill these tasks smoothly and efficiently, an experienced, qualified and trained nurse is required to motivate a team towards a common goal with practical approaches and right decisions. First and most importantly, nursing leaders are excellent clinicians and are natural mentors. Nursing Leadership needs vigilance beyond expectations to meet the uncalled challenges, or unpredicted situations. Literature Review: In this report, a thorough review is given on the cost management of nursing staff, how care delivery approaches are to be made and what positive outcomes one can get through effective and continuous communication (Houser, 2007). DQ2#1) Cost of Nursing Care: The cost of nursing care is directly proportional to over all expense of the hospital. There is a great need to specify the cost of nursing care to keep the total expenditure of hospital in the prescribed budget. As nursing care is the most important part of services which cannot be ignored at any cost, however proper record is required to be maintained to foresee the financial statements. Cost of Nursing Care can be calculated by (PCS) Patient Classification System based on the acuity of client’s condition multiplied by the number of patient which will equate to the number of hours served on nursing care. To practically calculate the cost of nursing care, I referred to an orthopedic unit, which had 12 patients who were at different situations and had different acuity levels. PCS would be calculated on the following: 4 patients were in a condition to be discharged and had acuity level 1: 4 X 1= 4. 4 patients were under therapy and had acuity level 4: 4 X 4= 16. 4 patients were under regular had acuity level 2: 4 X 2= 8. This total of 28 hours would be expanded by adding further 48 hours of an 8 hour shift for 8 patients who did not discharge in 8 hours which makes a total of 76 hours. This grand total of 76 hours can be used to determine Full Time Equivalent (FTE) for a unit. However, this formula does not give an accurate value because it does not have space for variances made according to situations. For instance if a patient was acquiring 2 hours and later demands 3 hours due to some uncertainty in patient’s condition. The cost is still being evaluated for 2 hours and thus giving 3 hours till the patient get stable. To neutralize these differences, Relative Value Unit as an index number is given to each unit based on amount of resources (labor and capital) which can be managed to produce nursing care (Kelly, 2008). For instance $1,250,000 is given to a unit which has total RVUs of 5,196.50. The amount will be divided by RVU’s to bring out the cost per RVU. For instance $1,250,000/ 5,196.50 = $ 240.55 per RVU. Thus the cost of one patient of level 4 acuity will be $ 240.55 X 4= $962.2 for one day. This formula of calculating the nursing cost does not either gives an exact cost because situations can vary and can demand excess resources. Thus there is no accurate calculation system to recognize exact nursing cost. It all depends on the acuity level which itself is not certain but varies according to patients conditions. These results can help outline the nursing care budget which is helpful to envision all pro’s and con’s to later deal with the finances affectively (Kelly, 2008). Dq2#2) Care Delivery Approach: Clinical pathways can never be same at all times or situation but it is an important methodology which is used to cut down the cost and care variations. It is a multi disciplinary task or plan to meet the challenges of improving patients’ health conditions through proper medical assistance, nursing and proper guidance. It is observed that clinical mapping or pathway are directed or planned according to certain criteria of patients’ health conditions or diagnostics and it begins with the admission of a patient till his/her discharge from the hospital. Care Delivery Approach is made after exact reports or diagnostics are made and the grade of recommendations is set after the examination of a literature of patients clinical reports. (Hill, 1994, Hill 1998) To be more specified, clinical pathways have four main specs: 1. Timeline of certain group of care. 2. Interventions of given care. 3. Record variance, 4.Immediate, intermediate and long term outcome of planned criteria (Kelly, 2008). Keeping Clinical studies in view, Level 5 predicts an actual condition of a patient which insists to keep him under what care delivery. Level 1: It is a steady finding about patients to suggest for or against recommending interventions. This process is carried out with inpatient clinic or healthy volunteers who are later paid for their cooperation and are kept under supervision to act if notice any unusual change. This test is done to check dose ranges to identify suitable dose ranges for certain conditions. SAD, MAD and food effects are different kinds of level 1 trial. Level 2 and 3: It is a consistent finding about patients to suggest for or against advised interventions. This trial is done when the safety of a drug is tested in trial 1. Level 2 and 3 is followed on larger groups of 30 -300 people to specify doses and to check the affectivity and toxicity of a drug. However, this trial is expensive, time consuming and lengthy but gives a wider perspective about a drug. Level 4 and 5: these levels does not allow for or against interventions. Level 4 is a post marketing trial and different safety measures are being tested after it is permitted to be sold in the market. Whereas, Level 5 is a translational research which is done to examine the comparative results after the drug is being used in a community. It signifies that a particular drug is now ready to be floated in a widespread public market. Dq3#1 ) Quality Measurement: Quality Measurement leads to a continuous process of improvements and help in achieving major task. To start with the process effective communication is important to initiate with any changes. If a Nurse Manager is there to observe and implement changes, some of the key roles will be kept in view to further proceed with the process. Communication plays a vital role in achieving desired goals. It makes it easier to let others understand the importance of certain unveiled issues. Likewise, in nursing profession and medical occupation, efficient communication lowers the risk of mistakes or wrong approach. Communication here is not only addressed to verbal conversation but includes diagnostic report, therapeutic approach to improve patients output. Say for instance, regular updates and records of a patient is not kept updated or not communicated with other doctors on duty cannot respond to a patient’s condition correctly. This could cause disturbances and can lead to unintentional negligence towards a patient. There are four core components which lead to proper channel of communication after which positive patients output is expected. 1. A system that implements local and regional consensus about what makes the best practices based on latest scientific research. 2. Strong recommendation to initiate such practices. 3. A deliberate program to approach a community on a particular disease prevention and health promotion. 4. A system to keep a constant check on the clinical outcomes and implementations of programs for improvements (Kelly, 2008). All these four components is a chain system which is not possible if one is skipped. This can be done in a medical unit of a hospital and can progress to communities. Effective communication can decrease the risks of medical errors which can result in severe losses. When medical practitioners do not communicate properly, several problems arise like: lack of critical information, misinterpretation, unclear instructions, overlooked changes in status. Team Communication and collaboration can bring out tremendous positive results in patients outcome by sharing information, latest technical updates and responsibilities (Carroll, 2006). DQ3#2 ) It is a daily routine in hospital environment to deal with problem patient. However it is not an easy task to deal with but still nursing care professionals are trained to do so. There are certain ways, in which nurses can communicate with a problem patient. Building trust in oneself and patient is the main tenant to further communicate, communicate positively and openly with a problem patient and make him/her homely to extract information, feeling, pain and problems. Assigned nurse to a problem patient shall motivate other nurses to correspond positively and convey hopes. Head nurses should create a team spirit to deal with patients and communicate with them humbly even if they lack to cooperate. Recognizing patients’ individualism and appreciation can boost patients’ willingness to communicate and interact with the working staff. Environment is the main thing which stays with the patient as long as they stay in the hospital; it is advisable to keep an environment clean, tidy and refreshing (Kelly, 2008). Over all system is based on effective communication which can lessen the misery of the patient and give them hope to another life. Organizing work load can make it easier for nursing staff to work effectively and happily. Conclusion: Leadership in any aspect of life is an essential role and carries its own responsibilities towards achievement. Leadership can make or spoil the whole plan of work, so it is quite essential to have a good quality leader in a working environment. Effective leadership communicates well with the working staff and motivates others to adopt the same gestures to overcome unpredicted accidents or situations nicely. Health care is a sensitive area of life where it is essential to prove best leadership skills and working is a team environment as thousands of lives are at stake and can be wasted through negligence which can never be accepted as an excuse. References: Carroll, P. (2006) Nursing leadership & management: A practical Guide. Delmar Cengage Learning. Houser, J. (2007) Nursing research: Reading, using and creating evidence. Jones and Bartlett Publishers. Kelly, P. (2008). Nursing leadership & management (2nd ed.). Clifton Park, NY: Thomson-Delmar Read More