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5.1: Introduction

  • Page ID
    8926
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    Learning Objectives

    • Apply systems theory to health care.
    • Identify the relationships between organizational culture, leadership, cultural intelligence, and change.
    • Identify the importance of the vision, mission, and value statements of an organization.
    • Conclude that relational leadership and empowerment play an important role in organizational cultural change.
    • Examine the standards for delegation of care established by the Saskatchewan Registered Nurses’ Association (SRNA) from RN to unregulated care providers and from physician to RN.

    Something unforeseen and magnificent is happening. Health care, having in our time entered its dark night of the soul, shows signs of emerging, transformed.

    —Barbara Dossey and Larry Dossey (cited in Porter-O’Grady & Malloch, 2011, p. 433)

    As the health care system responds to changes in the environment, nurse leaders refine and adapt leadership tools and care processes. Leadership tools such as organizational mission, vision, and value statements, which guide both administration and patient care providers through their daily work, are routinely reviewed and modified. “Delegation of care” or transfer of responsibility from one classification of care provider to another is an example of an important health care process adaptation that has occurred in response to rapid system-wide changes. Nurse leaders play an important role within this complex adaptive system as they retain a focus on maintaining a strong care provider culture that supports quality care and improved patient outcomes, regardless of unending change.


    This page titled 5.1: Introduction is shared under a CC BY 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Joan Wagner via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform; a detailed edit history is available upon request.