The Roles & Responsibilities of Licensed Practical Nurse - Research Paper Example

The Roles & Responsibilities of Licensed Practical Nurse Roles & Responsibilities Historically, one of the key aspects of the roles and responsibilities of LPNs has been to work under the supervision and guidance of the medical doctors. This has remained one of the established principles for the practice of LPNs. LPNs has also however, worked under the direct supervision of the registered nurse. Some of the basic roles and responsibilities of LPNs which have been historically performed include taking utmost responsibility and care of bedridden patients. LPNs also provide emotional and physical support to the patients in order to accelerate their overall healing process. Apart from this, LPNs also perform the basic duty of gathering and collecting the information from the patients who are going to be admitted to the hospital or medical healthcare facility. This is one of the primary responsibilities of LPNs to collect correct and accurate information in order to provide the doctors correct information in assisting best course of action for a patient. LPNs also are also required to administer any injections or medications which have been prescribed by the doctors. Dressing up of the physical wounds as well as helping doctors in other similar tasks. (Duncan & DePew, 2010) It is however, important to note that over the period of time, the demarcation line between the roles of LPNs and RN’s have blurred a lot. There are lot of overlapping roles and responsibilities which are performed by both. This evolution in the roles and responsibilities of the LPNs has now become one of the permanent factors of the practice which is now being considered. One of the major force which is reshaping the roles and responsibilities of the LPNs is the major health care reforms. Health care reforms have changed the way nurses now actually view their roles in the overall larger context of the organization. Healthcare organization, in order to meet the changing healthcare needs as well as meet with the skill shortages have actually allowed LPNs to evolve and expand their roles to accommodate those changes. Another important force which is shaping the way the overall roles of LPNs is changing is the improvements in the overall study and curriculum which has greatly enhanced the overall scope of the nursing practices. Over the period of time, research on the subject of Nursing has actually expanded the scope of the profession and has added some additional roles and responsibilities which have now been additionally added to the traditional roles of the LPNs. Third important force which is changing the overall roles and responsibilities of LPNs is basically the changing nature of management structures within healthcare organizations. The overall nature of management and managerial styles are changing across the organizations making them more open and participatory in nature. This style of management has actually allowed organizations to become more flat in nature and assign leadership roles at the lower level. Due to this reason, work has been delegated to the lower level and even LPNs have made accountable to assume leadership roles and become proactively engaged in the process. New Roles and Responsibilities 1. LPNs can now work independently without the direct supervision of doctors or registered nurses. This has actually allowed them to perform some of the functions which were earlier performed by RNs. 2. Another expansion into the roles of LPNs is the fact that they now can work in any area of the profession. They are working in care homes, acute care settings as well as agencies thus their role and responsibilities have actually broadened and they are assuming more leadership roles. 3. Due to expanded scope of the duties and roles of LPNs, communication has become important too. LPNs are now required to communicate more openly and effectively. 4. More knowledge based decision making is in practice now with LPNs also participating into evidence based practices. 5. LPNs have now also become more socialize in their role thus people management has become important. In order to accommodate to new changes and allow leadership to emerge within both LPNs and LPNs on training, it is critical to put them through training on the leadership. Hands on training through temporarily assigning them roles of responsibility can prove a cost effective method to impart on leadership training to LPNs. Secondly, new curriculum design can also help LPNs to actually become aware of the latest and new trends in leadership and how they can actually adapt the new learning to their work environment. Class room training through introducing topics on the subject can greatly increase leadership potential of new professionals. Assignment#2 Project Description Leadership is an evolving concept and all the nurses whether RN or LPNs should take active part in initiatives which may be aimed at improving the leadership qualities of them. To assist the nurses and make them more aware of their responsibilities and take proactive part, it is always important that new activities and initiatives should be undertaken in order to increase the participation of the existing and new persons involved in this profession. At community and workplace level, it becomes important that informal as well as formal leadership processes should emerge. Nurses being one of the most important and critical part of the overall process of healing and medical care therefore need to be part of any initiative which could help them to become more active in this community. This active participation can be achieved at different levels and LPNs in their individual as well as in professional capacity can actually contribute towards the development of a much larger community which can professionally contribute to the professional development of community. (Tate, 1999) The place where I work or the community I’m involved requires a constant and proactive approach in order to help individuals to grow as a better professional. A professional who can actually understand the dynamics of the new work requirement and learn to exist with other professionals can easily assume the leadership roles. These leadership roles can be either informal or formal and can allow individuals to actually improve their professional lives. It is also critical that any initiative which is undertaken also builds on the capacity of the individuals to actually become self-sufficient and initiate takers in order to resolve any future organizational challenges. (Hickey & Kritek, 2011) In order to build the leadership capacity of the LPNs and to help them equip with the latest tools and strategies which can actually help them to become more productive and people oriented, I propose an initiative. It is important to understand that informal leadership can serve as one of the hidden gem for the organizations. Its role has been increasingly recognized as important for the nursing profession also. Informal leadership and its cultivation throughout the organization can encourage nurses to be implicitly motivated by their ability to make important contribution to their community as well as organization. Increasing the capability of nurses to actually participate into the informal leadership process can help them to build their leadership potential right from the start of their career. This initiative will involve engaging LPNs, both working and on training to engage into role play for various leadership roles which they can potentially assume in their work place and community. This initiative is based upon the assumption that by providing on-job training through role-plays, it can help LPNs to actually go through the various processes of leadership and actually perform them before they assume such leadership roles in their real life. One of the key reasons to actually propose this arrangement and initiative is to actually help develop an organizational structure and management style where everyone is taken into consideration. By proposing such an initiative, I consider that new and experienced LPNs will actually be involved in larger roles and will have required training to actually participate into the leadership process and increase their capacity to make informed decisions. Another important reason as to why I have chosen this goal to accomplish is that traditionally LPNs have been limited to few roles and thus it has potentially reduced their ability to get noticed within the organization as important forces of change. My goal therefore is to help LPNs to actually become more aware of their roles and how they can contribute towards the achievement of this goal. LPNs should play a much bigger role in determining the overall health outcome for the patients and this initiative can help them to be active part of the whole organization. This trend has actually made LPNs relatively low status employees with very fixed and rigid roles and responsibilities. This project will actually help to accomplish the task of increasing the overall importance of LPNs within the organization. Through this project I also tend to accomplish the task of increasing participatory level of LPNs in the overall management of the departments. Though they can now work independently however, in order to properly mentor them and help them grow as better professional, this program will help them to rotate their roles and become attached with different professionals in order to gain insights into what level of decision making is performed at what level. (Roussel, 2011) Realizable Goal In order to achieve the above vision and help LPNs to become more productive for their organizations, I set following goal: “ to help LPNs to become more pro-active and assume positions of responsibility, management of my organization should be convinced to implement a plan where all LPNs on job and on training are put through different role plays at least twice a year in order to help them improve their skills for leadership roles” Strategy to implement the Plan In order to achieve above goal, following step-by step strategy will be adapted: Level of Support In order to gain the required level of support and present a genuine case to implement above program, I will require the support of LPNs first. More appropriately, I need to talk to some senior LPNs and other senior staff to actually make them understand the overall scope of this project and how they can help in terms of setting up rotations, picking up right candidates for the roles and other formalities. Apart from this, I will also prepare a written plan for this to be presented to the management of the organization. This plan will be for the higher management of the organization and will outline as to how the overall benefits of allowing LPNs to go through some decision making and leadership roles can help them to build their capacity and add to the overall well-being of the organization and increase overall patient outcome. Current Supporters & Key Opponents My current supporters include senior Nurse Tracy who is supporting this initiative and is also helping me to prepare the plan for the achievement of this objective. Apart from this, some junior staff is also supporting us in terms of finding out right information to be passed on to the management of the organization to actually help LPNs to develop as better leaders. My current supporters also included some medical doctors and management personnel who are willing to commit some time to help us shape our plan well. Though there are no visible and hardcore opponents of this goal, however, I feel that some individuals from the management may not be entirely supportive. This due to the fact that arranging rotations, selecting right type of candidates as well as designing and implementing the plan would require resources. Management, at this point in time, therefore may not be ready to actually support this idea due to budget constraints. Skills and Resources Required In order to effectively carry out this plan, it is important that we must improve our negotiation and communication skills. It is highly desirable that the communication skills must be of higher level in order to not only sell out our plan to the higher management but to the LPNs. Effective communication skills therefore will be needed to learned through classroom training or other means such as online learning. All the participants who will be participating into this process will be put through the training of communication skills. This training will be mandatory for anyone willing to participate into this process in order to ensure that all the participants are having the higher level of communications skills. In order to achieve this, all the participants will be using their own resources however, management can pursued to provide resources to actually help train the participants to improve their communication skills. A formal budget and finance proposal in this regard will also be presented to the management in order to ascertain if management can provide resources to the people involved. Data Collection and Information Requirements The primary data required for this project will come from the participants who will be willing to enroll into this program and volunteer themselves for the role plays. During different shifts, a form will be kept in the operational areas where willing participants will be filling that form. That form will contain all the information which may be required by the participants to actually understand what this initiative is and how they benefit from this initiative. This form will also detail out other information which may be necessary to collect from the participants. The overall data collection therefore will be done in accordance with the plan of distributing information and data collecting forms during the working shifts. Participants will also be informed about their potential roles and how they can actually contribute towards this. Information requirements therefore will largely pertain to the participants who will be participating in the program. Issues of ethics and integrity We believe that issues of ethics and integrity will come up during this project and in order to tackle them we plan to obtain informed consent of all the participants. In order to take consent of all the participants, the data collection form will contain the information about the consent and all the participants will be asked to carefully read the information and provide their consent by signing that part of the form. All the participants will be specifically asked and explained all the related ethics and integrity issues and a separate training session will be arranged for the participants to let them understand what could be potentially issues of ethics and integrity and how they can actually handle them. Besides, all the participants including management will be required to sign up a non-disclosure agreement in order to ensure the confidentiality of the data and to ensure maximum safety. Enlistment Process This could be one of the most important steps in order to ensure that right candidates are recruited for this program. Initially, all those LPNs who are senior and have at least 5 years of experience will be persuaded to enroll in this program. We believe that 5 years of experience is sufficient enough to give a LPN much needed exposure to the operational formalities besides providing a good understanding of their roles and responsibilities. As such the primary focus will be on the enlistment of all those LPNs who have done 5 years of work. Motivation and Persuasion The obvious explicit advantage available to everyone off course is the opportunity to get into the roles which can increase their ability to make better decisions. By allowing participants to actually participate into the actual decision making process, this program will serve as a self-motivating factor for most of the program participants. The intrinsic reward of involving themselves into the bigger decisions and assuming roles which LPNs will acquire in future actually will help them to keep themselves motivated for a better future. (Clark, 2008) Apart from this, it is also important to note that this project will have the backing of the management therefore participants will be well aware of the fact that management is considering them for the future development and their growth prospects may be higher if they participate into this project. Having the backing of the management will therefore further prove as a catalyst to keep the participants motivated. Coaching and Mentoring This whole project is for coaching and mentoring in which participants will be going through coaching and mentoring process. All the participants will actually be attached with the seniors who are already performing the leadership roles. These leaders will coach and mentor the participants by letting them go through the whole process of making decisions and their day to day operational responsibilities. Coaching and mentoring will be done through on-job training wherein participants will be joining senior persons to work with them for a brief period of time and return back to their original duties. Dealing with conflicts Conflicts can be essential part of the whole process wherein participants as well as management may come into conflict with each other. The potential conflicts can arise between the regular duty period of the participants and their coaching and mentoring sessions. During those sessions no alternatives will be available to replace the participant in their actual duties. This could create the conflict as individual departments may not allow their participants to participate during the peak times. During these times, it may not be possible for the departments to actually accommodate any changes in the schedule. However, in order to deal with this situation and to avoid conflicts, all the departments will be informed in advance about the upcoming sessions and they will be particularly informed to allow only those participants in the program who can be easily replaced by other participants through shift changes and other arrangements. Management will also be involved in this process to actually allow the easy conflict resolution. Acknowledgement In order to acknowledge those who have actually participated in this project and actually supported this program throughout its life will be rewarded with explicit rewards. Certificates of appreciation will be given to all the participants who participated into the program. Apart from them, a large board will be displayed on the reception area on which specific names of all those who helped us made this possible will be written and shared. Everyone who was either early supporter or encourager will be appreciated. Since this goal will be achieved with the help of management therefore management will be particularly informed about forming a new promotion or HRM policy in order to accommodate all those participants who are willing to assume better roles for their organizations. They will therefore also be rewarded through management support by either increasing their salaries or offering them relatively quicker promotions. Management will also be asked to appreciate and reward all those who helped and provided their support in this program either through their skill transfer or other voluntary involvement into the overall management of the project. Conclusion This program is basically aimed at improving the leadership qualities and skills of LPNs and will therefore allow them opportunity to work on assignments which can help them to improve their decision making and leadership skills. In order to accomplish this vision and goals, a program is envisioned under which participants will be asked to join seniors and involve in role play as well as on-job training on advanced roles. By participating into this process, LPNs will actually be able to get a feel of the leadership process; how the decisions are made at the top level and what type of skills are required in order to accomplish those tasks. This program will allow participants to actually become aware of those processes and increase their capability to assume future roles which can help them grow as better professionals with much needed skills of decision making and leadership. Bibliography Clark, C. (2008). Creative Nursing Leadership and Management. New York: Jones & Bartlett Learning. Duncan, G., & DePew, R. (2010). Transitioning from LPN/VN to RN: Moving Ahead in Your Career. London: Cengage Learning. Hickey, M., & Kritek, P. (2011). Change Leadership in Nursing: How Change Occurs in a Complex Hospital System. London: Springer Publishing Company. Roussel, L. (2011). Management and Leadership for Nurse Administrators. New York: Jones & Bartlett Publishers. Tate, C. W. (1999). Leadership in Nursing. Washington: Elsevier Health Sciences. Read More