Health Care
Quality and safety of the patients are paramount is a hospital setting. It aims at lessening the providers and the patient’s harm through individual performance and system effectiveness (Martin, McKee, & Woods, 2015). Improved system of care enhances the quality of the services provided. Quality is also achieved through education where the health professionals learn critical competencies. The nurses ought to attend to work safety and also avoid relying on vigilance. Involving the patients in their care and designing for recovery promotes quality and safety. The goal of improving health care is not fully realized as the safety of the patients is threatened. Several errors also occur in the process of care delivery.
Quality and safety are restrained by several factors including use of a system that is prone to risk thus producing unintended consequences (Ossebaard & Pijnen, 2016). There is a lack of comprehensive communication systems, written, verbal and electronic communication system. Sometimes the health practitioner may fail to own the safety of the patient which is very risky. Other nurses will fear punishment thus not reporting the emerging issues. Inadequate resources and lack of training may also hinder achieving quality and safety. The limiting forces can be countered through system improvement and resources availability. The human factors like communication and managing workload must be considered. It is promoting transparency that encourages reporting of error or potential for failure identified.
It is essential to recognize that errors happen and we should not emphasize on who caused the failure but instead find a solution to the error. The IOM promotes safety other than addressing mistakes (Waring, Allen, Braithwaite, & Sandall, 2016). DNP can use different strategies to help the culture of security in the organization. One is by establishing safety as an organizational priority. The patients should be involved, and everyone held accountable for them. Promotion of safety can also be done through training and education. Sharing goals, core values and taking corrective responses towards errors will promote the culture of quality and safety
Leadership Role
Transformational leadership is an excellent strategy of management used by the nurses as it has a lot of implication in their administration (Lin, MacLennan, Hunt, & Cox, 2015). It promotes professional values, trust, and commitment to the organization. It can be developed through using Senge’s approach and implementation of quality circle idea. Encouraging risk taking by the employees and implementing a shared nursing care model of governance also promotes it. The strategy encourages change and confluence the goals of the individuals with that of the organization. A leader should be able to inspire, appreciate innovation, inspire and be compassionate.
In care delivery, the nurse should ensure the patient gets the best service. The patient should feel genuine care and compassion from the nurses. Individualized consideration has to be emphasized. Payment model should promote rewarding quality services. Fee for service is not encouraged and thus the need for mobilizing change. A transformational leader should win the trust of the people thus facing no resistance as an influential person (Masters, 2016). Value-based purchasing is one of the best payment models. The institution is rewarded based on their adherence level to clinical practice and the experience of the patient during hospitalization. The strategy aims at motivating the health facilities to accomplish their goals while inspiring the patients. Integrated health care delivery system should be promoted to ease the work. It allows the patient to get the same high-quality services wherever the patient enter. The patient moving from one level to the other will have a seamless experience as the system will be communicating efficiently.
Strong leadership is essential to transform the health care system. The need for a high-quality workforce that is performance oriented requires a nurse leader to inspire the workforce. Transformational leadership is a powerful management strategy that enables nurse leaders to effect change and develop sufficient workforce.
References
Lin, P. Y., MacLennan, S., Hunt, N., & Cox, T. (2015). The influences of nursing transformational leadership style on the quality of nurses’ working lives in Taiwan: a cross-sectional quantitative study. BMC Nursing, 14(1), 33.
Martin, G. P., McKee, L., & Dixon-Woods, M. (2015). Beyond metrics? Utilizing ‘soft intelligence’ for healthcare quality and safety. Social Science & Medicine, 142, 19-26.
Masters, K. (2016). Integrating quality and safety education into clinical nursing education through a dedicated education unit. Nurse Education in Practice, 17, 153-160.
Ossebaard, H. C., & Van Gemert-Pijnen, L. (2016). eHealth and quality in health care: implementation time. International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 28(3), 415-419.
Waring, J., Allen, D., Braithwaite, J., & Sandall, J. (2016). Healthcare quality and safety: a review of policy, practice, and research. Sociology of Health & Illness, 38(2), 198-215.
