Management Interview with a Nurse Manager - Essay Example

Qualifications for a nurse manager

She reported she has more than five years of experience in the hospitals. She also obtained a master's degree three years ago, and she a current registered nurse license in Ohio State. She flexible, and she has adopted to work for long hours in the hospital, although the number of patients dealing with fluctuating schedules and adapting to long hours has become part of her. She also added to becoming a nurse manager; a person has to have effective leadership and communication skills, which is crucial in a managerial function. This will help handle the different situations and effectively report to the administration and work with a large team.

Background and training

On- Job Training - the nurse managers reported having received informal training while performing the assigned task with the nurse manager's supervision at that time. She also mentioned having been designated as team leaders of different groups with full responsibility to act authority, which enabled her to learn leadership roles and identify challenges faced as a leader. She also reported having been appointed as an assistant nurse manager. She took the nurse manager's part in the absence of the nurse manager; this enabled her to gain confidence in the managerial role and develop new skills critical to management. By attending regular seminars and meetings, practice education-based sessions in the organizations enabled her to improve her nursing and nursing management skills.

Off –the –Job Training-This is internal training by other personnel. It is done through the coordination of the human resources department or a trainer in the organization with expertise in the subject. Internal Training by External Consultants The organization may lack the knowledge and therefore has to source elsewhere. The training is held either inside or outside the organization and facilitated by external consultants. The course(s) are tailored to the specific needs of the organization. The nurse manager reported having attended organization management based education seminars that were intended to educate the available nurses of the managerial skills and knowledge that was crucial for meeting the organization's mission and vision.

By delegating tasks to the nurses and ensuring regular job rotation, these will increase their skills and hand situations. Encouraging them to add masters to their degree these will add more knowledge and abilities competent for a managerial position.

Challenges facing the role related to decision making, staffing conflict, or discrimination

The nurse reported that she had faced an ethical dilemma during her managerial practice. She was faced with the difficulty of choosing what was wrong or right to do when the patient denied disclosing his prognosis to the relatives to prevent them from worrying because it was a terminal illness. The nurse did not want to breach confidentiality because it's his right. The decision had to be made by the interprofessional team after consultation with the patient to ensure the risks and benefits are weighed according to the needs of the patient

Staffing is often a problem in most hospitals, and nurse managers have to solve patients' increased needs compared to the inadequate ratio of staff available. Staffing is a complex activity that involves ensuring that the nurse's proportion to the patient provides quality care. The nurse reported the nursing shortage, and the high activity levels of admitted patients to critical care areas complicate this process. Hence staffing depends directly on the workload or patient care needs.

Conflict- the nurse manager reported solving a variety of conflicts especially when the patient and doctors disagree due to ; lack of trust, culture, values differences. As the nurse manager she act as the patient advocate to solve the issues that were affecting the patient. Also when patients and the family disagree family usually give support and care but this inadvertently happen.. she also reported of Interprofessinal conflicts that arised especially due to the varying value system of the hospital that resulted from tasks given or discrimination by the charge nurse and unfair scheduling which she had to intervene as the nurse manager

Overcoming the challenges

As a manager she made an ideal staffing plan that provided the appropriate ratio of caregivers to individual patient's needs based on data that predict the census. And also teaching the staff about time managing and prioritizing of tasks given. In case the hospital had shortage she involves the human resource management to employ more workers’.

She mentioned that managers may overcome conflict by ensuring effective communication between the patients and doctors. if the patient doesn’t prefer the physician she/he should be given another one .also the family and patients conflicts should be solved by reconciliation by the healthcare professional. She ensured regular job rotation for the employees to improve their interrelationship skills amongst themselves, these will increase the knowledge and skills these will prevent the workers to become used to each other. She also made sure the scheduling of staff and task allocation was done efficiently according to the patient’s technical tasks

With issues of ethical dilemma she preferred to hold meetings with other professional practitioners,the family and the patient included to discus and make a decision concerning the patient while maintain privacy and anonymity .They Balance between the potential harm of disclosure and the wellbeing of the families, close contacts and community need to be achieved. She added confidentiality in health care is not absolute-potential risk and benefits need to be weighed especially for aggressive patients.

Methods used to build an effective health care team

By ensuring effective delegation of roles and responsibilities to the employees. She achieved these by allocating tasks according to the technical skills and competences of the respective nurses. By looking at the job description of the employee before allocating the tasks the nurse manager guides the delegatee on issues and expectations of the task and monitors the performance

By giving the staff continuous feedback concerning suggestions made, their needs by giving them day offs incentives and looking at their welfare encouraging informal organizations that may cater for the needs

Skills that a nurse manager needs to master

Effective leadership and communication skills - the nurse manager should always be a role model to his /her staff by tackling the questions that the staff are asking and the patients questions efficiently. Nurse Managers are always required to give reports about different departments on patient’s progress and the performance of the staff which require strong written communication skills

They should have attention to details - They did this through teaching the staff on how to attend to patients during the first day of admission by taking details of the patient since the smallest mistake can bring a tragic outcome. Documentation of all the activities performed is also crucial as it will prevent any consequences that can cause harm to the profession because what is not written it’s not done

Time management - Proper time management is very crucial in management role or any nursing task. These is usually excited by making a plan of the daily activities that need to be carried out and making list of task according to the priority, these reduces the chance to forget things as planned. Also through grouping task and delegating those that can be done by the assistant manager so that you can have more time on the demanding tasks.

Evaluation

I would aspire to become a nurse manager due to continuous exposure of becoming a charge nurse in different departments of the hospitals which has given me the skills and knowledge of managing the patients and staffs. It has also exposed me to different challenges that the staffs are going through and have handled some cases. It has motivated me to aim higher and add my education to masters so that I can secure the management position