Role of CNO (Chief Nursing Officer) - Essay Example

Roles of the Chief Nursing Officer (CNO) Roles of the Chief Nursing Officer (CNO) The Chief Nursing Officers (CNOs) should impact nurses in their everyday affairs by influencing how decisions are made and ensuring that institutions of medical care make decisions that consider the interest of the medical practitioners in all fields of practice. The Chief Nursing Officers are part of the management team that makes decisions and follows up with their implementation. Since the nursing staff is insignificantly represented in the administration boards, the CNOs ought to ensure that important health care issues touching on the patients and the nursing staff and included in the decision-making strategy.

According to a 2002 survey, approximately 55 percent of the CNOs were found to report directly to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) (Committee on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Initiative on the Future of Nursing, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation., & Institute of Medicine, 2011). This presents the CNOs with a good chance to present the ailing problems of the treatment, disease management, patient safety, and nursing staff safety to the top management board. In other words, the CNO is a representative for the nursing staff and the patients to the health care administration.

This should go in hand with the implementation of strategies that are geared towards the improvement of the quality of services in the health care institutions. In most cases, the management board focuses primarily on financial and business aspects of health care institutions (Committee on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Initiative on the Future of Nursing, at the Institute of Medicine., Robert Wood Johnson Foundation., & Institute of Medicine, 2011). However, with the representation of the CNOs in the board, there is an all-round structure of administration that can make diverse and all-inclusive decisions that touch on all the stakeholders in the health sector.

The significance of their representation is that they are directly in touch with the nursing staff and the patients as well as other stakeholders in the health sector. It is through the representation of the nursing staff by the CNO in the hospital board that critical issues affecting health care such as understaffing, budget pressures, turnover levels, and retention can be satisfactorily addressed. Another significant role of the CNO in health care is guaranteeing and assuring the quality of services offered in the clinics.

The Chief Nursing Officer ought to directly supervise the nursing staff to ensure that patient satisfaction is achieved. The achievements and setbacks in the attainment of the vision of the institution as far as the delivery of services is concerned should then be reported directly to the CEO and other board members. If this is done, the medical fraternity will have a smooth flow of the implementation of ideas. The same will help to ensure that duties and responsibilities are well shared for the interest of the nursing staff and the patients.

For instance, the Chief Nursing Officer ought to ensure that all the practitioners are assigned roles and duties that are within their field of competence. This will help to identify any skills gap in the institution and propose to the board members and the CEO for additional recruitments.If the CNOs are underrepresented in the hospital boards, it would be difficult for the managerial staffs to understand the real problems on the ground that need adequate and immediate attention. It is for this reason that the hospital boards should consider incorporating selected Chief Nursing Officers in the voting boards.

This will not only strengthen the decision-making capability of the board but will also improve the quality of service delivery and patient satisfaction. Eventually, the health care institution would then become a significant part of the society by helping to reduce disease infection rates.ReferenceCommittee on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Initiative on the Future of Nursing, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation., & Institute of Medicine (U.S.). (2011). The future of nursing: Leading change, advancing health.

Washington, D.C: National Academies Press.