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12.7: Summary

  • Page ID
    9427
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    SUMMARY

    In this chapter, the responsibilities of a nurse manager and leader are examined and identified through various lenses. A nurse manager is responsible for the day-to-day operations of a workplace in addition to providing inspiration and direction to other nurses and health care professionals. Nurses, including nurse managers, may find themselves in workplace moral and ethical distress. The CNA Code of Ethics is a valuable resource to support nurse managers in demonstrating ethical leadership in situations related to safe nurse staffing, medical assistance in dying (MAID), and environmental health. Numerous resources and networking opportunities exist across Canada to support nursing leadership development. Nurse leaders— in particular nurse managers—play a key role in the immediate lives of nurses, as well as in the health care system and the health of Canadians.

    Some key takeaways from this chapter include:

    • Know your own personal, professional, and organizational values.
    • The application of personal and professional values is particularly relevant in the practice of empowering, collaborative leadership styles, such as transformational leadership (see Kouzes and Posner, 2012) and authentic leadership.
    • Nursing leadership is “about innovative and visionary administrators…who understand and hold themselves accountable for creating vibrant, exciting practice settings in which nurses can deliver safe, accessible, timely and high-quality care for the Canadians they serve” (CNA, 2009a, p.1).
    • Nurse managers are in a key position to influence the professional practice of staff nurses through the creation of professional practice environments.
    • While nurse managers must develop strong organizational and management skills, effective leadership skills are needed to navigate today’s challenging work environments confronted with human, fiscal, time, and other resource constraints.

    After completing this chapter, you should now be able to:

    1. Recognize the role of nurse leaders, in particular, nurse managers.
    2. Integrate the role of the professional nurse into the role of the nurse leader or manager.
    3. Illustrate the importance of examining personal, professional, and organizational values in nursing practice.
    4. Describe how the CNA’s Code of Ethics can be used in your nursing practice to deal with environmental threats.

    Exercises

    1. Linda is a nurse manager on a critical care unit. It has been brought to her attention that it is common practice for the nurses working on the night shift to sleep in the visitors’ lounge. Linda is planning to discuss this with the nursing staff. What elements of the CNA Code of Ethics could Linda apply to inform her discussion with the nurses?
    2. Define a clinical or management issue that requires action. Assume that you have six weeks to make a difference. Create a high-level plan that demonstrates effective leadership.
    3. How is data, information, and research to inform management decision making?
    4. As a nurse manager, you have a small group of staff nurses with a keen interest in diabetes care who offer to revise the diabetic foot care policies and procedures. What actions might you take to empower these nurses?
    5. A diabetic client, living on a ranch in rural Saskatchewan, has a leg ulcer that appears to be infected. The local physician has advised her to wash the ulcer with Sunlight soap every day to dry out the exudate. You have just made a home visit to the client and you know that this treatment is not best practice for wound care. What are your next steps? Describe how your next steps fall within the professional boundaries of authorized registered nursing practice.

    REFERENCES

    Berry, L., & Curry, P. (2012). Nursing workload and patient care. Ottawa: Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions. Retrieved from https://nursesunions.ca/wp-content/u...ersion_pdf.pdf

    Canadian Institute for Health Information [CIHI]. (2016). Regulated nurses, 2015. Ottawa: Author. Retrieved from secure.cihi.ca/free_products...rt_2015_en.pdf

    Canadian Institute for Health Information [CIHI]. (2011). Seniors and the health care system: What is the impact of multiple chronic conditions? Ottawa: Author. Retrieved from secure.cihi.ca/free_products...ase_aib_en.pdf

    Canadian Nurses Association [CNA]. (2017a). Code of ethics for registered nurses. Ottawa: Author. Retrieved from https://www.cna-aiic.ca/~/media/cna/...tive.pdf?la=en

    Canadian Nurses Association [CNA]. (2017b). National nursing framework on medical assistance in dying in Canada [Position statement]. Retrieved from https://www.cna-aiic.ca/~/media/cna/...rk-on-maid.pdf

    Canadian Nurses Association [CNA]. (2009a). Nursing leadership [Position statement]. Retrieved from https://www.cna-aiic.ca/~/media/cna/...ment.pdf?la=en

    Canadian Nurses Association [CNA]. (2009b). Nurses and environmental health[Position statement]. Retrieved from https://www.cna-aiic.ca/~/media/cna/...-statement.pdf

    CNA and Canadian Medical Association. (2009). Environmentally responsible activity in the health sector [Joint position statement]. Retrieved from https://www.cna-aiic.ca/~/media/cna/...al_e.pdf?la=en

    Government of Saskatchewan. (1988). The Registered Nurses Act, 1988. Retrieved from http://www.publications.gov.sk.ca/fr...utes/R12-2.pdf

    Huston, C. (2008). Preparing nurse leaders for 2020. Journal of Nursing Management,16, 905–911.

    Institute for Healthcare Improvement [IHI]. (2017). IHI Triple Aim initiative. Retrieved from http://www.ihi.org/Engage/initiative...s/default.aspx

    Kouzes, J., & Posner, B. (2012). The leadership challenge (5th ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

    Makaroff, K., Storch, J., Pauly, B., & Newton, L. (2014). Searching for ethical leadership in nursing. Nursing Ethics, 21(6), 642-658.

    National Expert Commission. (2012). A nursing call to action: The health of our nation, the future of our health system. Ottawa: Canadian Nurses Association.

    Nightingale, F. (1860). Notes on nursing: What it is, and what it is not. New York: D. Appleton and Company. Retrieved fromhttp://digital.library.upenn.edu...g/nursing.html

    Ontario Hospital Association [OHA]. (2011). Leading Practices for Addressing Clinical Manager Span of Control in Ontario. Retrieved from https://www.scribd.com/document/2317...-Control-Final

    Purdy, N. (2016). Impact of a leadership development institute on professional lives and careers. Nursing Leadership, 29(2), 10–30.

    Rais, S., Nazerian, A., Ardal, S., Chechulin, Y., Bains, N., & Malikov, K. (2013). High-cost users of Ontario’s healthcare services. Healthcare Policy, 9(1), 44–51.

    Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario [RNAO]. (2013). Developing and sustaining nursing leadership (2nd ed.). Toronto: Author.

    Saskatchewan Registered Nurses’ Association [SRNA]. (2018). What is a registered nurse? Retrieved from https://www.srna.org/about-us/what-is-an-rn/

    Saskatchewan Registered Nurses’ Association [SRNA]. (2013). Standards and foundation competencies for the practice of registered nurses. Regina, SK: Author. Retrieved from srna.org/wp-content/uploads/..._06_10_Web.pdf


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