Boost Nursing Projects by Creating a Successful Business Plan by Cynthia Williams - Essay Example

"Boost Nursing Projects by Creating a Successful Business Plan by Cynthia Williams" is a marvellous example of a paper on care.
The article “Boost nursing projects by creating a successful business plan” by Cynthia Williams, and K. Roby Simmons. This article discusses the issue of perception regarding nurses and how nurses can improve that perception through personal accountability. It has been suggested that nursing, despite being one of the trustworthy profession, lacks to feature as one of the most important influencers of healthcare reforms within the industry. Authors suggest that by using the business skills, nurses can actually influence the overall policy-making process within the industry and can be significant stakeholders. Authors, therefore, went on to discuss various parts of the business plan and how it can be used to actually gain approvals for various projects. The overall purpose is to help nurses to become more active players in managing the overall affairs of a healthcare facility.

Critique of the Article

The major purpose of the article seems to educate nurses regarding how they can prepare business plans to suggest profitable projects and secure the necessary funding for them. Authors have outlined the various sections of the standard business plans which are being prepared and what is their purpose. By outlining various sections, their purpose and how they can be used by the nurses, authors actually attempted to provide a comprehensive review of the standard business plans.

One aspect which is critically missing from the overall article is the fact that one size fits all approach may not be suitable for every situation. Though standard business plans are great to fill out and deliberate upon, however, due to the peculiar nature of each project, standard business plans may not be sufficient to fulfil the purpose. (Roussel, 2011)

As outlined in the beginning, the overall purpose of the authors seems to make nurses an active stakeholder in the overall decision making and management process. However, preparing business plans is just one part of the overall active involvement by the nurses. Though understanding financial aspects of doing the business and contributing towards the profitability of the facility should be on the priority of the nurses, however, a big question remains as to whether nurses are trained enough to develop business plans on their own. (Nagelkerk, 2005)

Authors have also touched unevenly on different parts of the business plan thus giving more importance to certain parts while leaving other parts alone. What is also important to note is the fact that authors have failed to identify as to how nurses will be able to get the data for building up a business plan. Important data on making financial spreadsheets, understanding mission and vision of the organization as a whole, a detailed understanding of the entire organization and its operational activities etc are issues which may not be easy for nurses to handle.

Authors therefore have failed to outline as to how the business plans can be effectively built and what are some of the essential sources from which critical data can be sourced. Finding data relevant for the information requires extensive coordination between different departments and how to deal with the internal politics within the organization to get the desired data.

A well-written business plan has many important elements which may not be directly related to nursing. For example, the marketing information regarding prices of new equipment, cost estimation as well as achieving milestones requires good marketing and project management skills. Nurses are not traditionally trained in preparing business plans and authors failed to tackle this issue of how they will be preparing this business plan. (Reel & Abraham, 2006)

Authors discussed the political as well as presentation skills as essential for the purpose of getting success through the business plan. While both these skills may be critical for the overall approval of the plan by the higher management however, it may not necessarily important that these two skills can get the results. A fine-tuned business plan with precise knowledge about each section discusses also play an important role also.

More importantly, it is also important to understand as to how the overall business plan will be carried out. Authors discussed various parts of the business plan but failed to define as to how nurses will find a balance between their normal duties and new assignments if their business plans are approved and projects go ahead.  Further, it is also critical to differentiate between how a nurse administrator as well as the normal general nurses can approach this issue. The contents discussed in the article seem to be suited more to the overall job objectives of nursing administrators rather than general nurses. Authors should have made an attempt to further narrow down the topic to improve its overall effectiveness. (Finkler & McHugh, 2008)