Journaling Tips for Nursing Management
Nursing is a crucial and sensitive practice where each and every step could have a major impact on the entire organisation. Health organisations are the ones who need to be highly active and alert in their work for their leniency could lead to some drastic or highly impacting consequences. In these entire considerations one tool which could help in reducing the pressure on nurses and on the organisation is an effective and planned management system (Timmins, 2019). Management system or strategy is a tool which provides an organisation or task with a scope of being productive and enhancing. Management tools and methods are wide in nature and there are multiple aspects of management which are considered by the organisations on the basis of their intention and working culture. Nurses are the ones who have to deal with the patient and with the doctors in a productive way and this bring in multiple scenarios where difference of personality, management aspect, cultural view and various other aspects impact the organisation (Ens, Bazylewski & Duchscher, 2018) The case description of would state an experience that I witnessed few years back in one of the health care organisations. I would provide it with my view and would suggest some tools which could have helped in avoiding the situation. Management theories would be used for stating the suggestion with proper justification to it.
As I was practicing nursing I witnessed few incidents in the organisation which provided me with an insight into the sensitivity that a health organisation carries. Each and every member of the health organisation needs to be highly sensitive and accurate in their words, actions and decisions. A minor leniency could lead to a major outbreak which could have a long lasting effect on the organisation, the customer and on the person himself. She was transferred from another hospital under emergency as the former organization didn’t have many facilities to treat her. As she arrived, I would not say that she was normal but her condition was not quite soothing. The next morning at about 3-4 a.m. there was two to three doctors present beside her bed with few nurses and the matron. Her condition was critical and she was lapsing. Later during the day time I heard she is taken to Intensive Care Unit as she is kept under observation for next 24 hours are quite critical for her. On communicating with the people around and her family member, I got to know that she was given some medicine which impacted her brain nerves. There was no clear indication as what was the reason for her critical condition as every one was giving some or the other reason. I was curious as I have been a caring person since childhood and oldies have been my favourite. There was something fishy going around which I decided to look upon. I took up her medical chart and report with her caretaker’s permission and studied it accurately. Her reports revealed that she was a heart patient with some nervous problem and she also had a brain injury about a year ago. On enquiring about the case closely, I got to know that her medical report and chart was not provided to the nurse and was stated that it’s not given by the previous hospital. But in reality it was provided to the concerned hospitals as she arrived but was misplaced. This led to the present scenario. The doctor and the department head were having some contradictory views on the execution of activities due to which some personal cold war was on. The doctor didn’t realize the importance of demanding her previous reports and he took over the patient as a new entry. On being instructed, the nurse gave the medicines on time with food but she didn’t realize that the patient’s glucose bottle has finished and it is hanging empty. The old lady even tried to convey her restlessness through expressions but the nurse didn’t notice her actions and fell asleep. The bell against the bed was not working and all these led to delay in proper and effective treatment.
The Incident: Lack of Effective Management and Communication
The entire scenario I experienced helped me in realizing the importance of management, personality traits, leadership qualities, accuracy in communication and many other factors which makes up an organisation with quality services. The case I witnessed had a major theme of lack of effective management, systematic communication, personality traits and leadership skills. These major themes are identified to be the reason for the poor old lady who experienced immense health issues which got added on through visiting the concerned hospital. The major theme which would be explored is communication and leadership traits. The minor themes which were identified in the major specified themes were inclusion of personal issues in the professional life, anger, jealousy, anxiety, etc (Al?Yami, Galdas & Watson, 2018). The communication system in the hospital was not adequately present which led to the misplacement of the medical history, and the department head was carrying personal grudges against the doctors which led to a chronic and life taking scenario for the old lady. As per Pihlainen, Kivinen & Lammintakanen (2016), management of an organisation, requires effective communication and a systematic flow. Communicating factor is stated to be the most crucial, productive, sensitive and critical part which needs to be planned for an organisation in a way that each and every message is passed on to the respective team with confirmation (Bai et al. 2017). Elton Mayo has rightly provided with the Behavioural Theory of Management (Hawthorne Effect), which specifies that the management is required to have a professional behaviour for all its activities and decisions with no relevance of personal impact. The theory is applicable in every organisation, be it business or health care organisation. On concentrating on the management principles of nursing, the principles which should be rightly applicable and followed for effective result include nurses should be accountable to their actions and decisions, effective communication, enhanced skills and knowledge and others (Shirey, 2017). Nursing management principles provide a list of considerations that should be made by each practitioner.
I gained knowledge on the sensitivity of nursing through witnessing the scenario as stated above. A systematic communication could have been the saviour for the old lady. If the organisation followed a communication system which marked each and every member who is to be communicated and through whom then the reports would have reached the respective hands at the right time. Being a health organisation, the accountability and requirement of accuracy gets added on to the management principles. Communication is the only way through which half problem of minor issues could be resolved. The chances of making mistake could be reduced through practicing an effective communication tool (Asamani, 2016). I learned about communication significance in the nursing education but I witnessed the accuracy and impact of mis-communication in my practicing years. Personal grudges or problems should never be a part of your work and this was stated in my education in almost every class. While practicing I witnessed the consequence of carrying personal issues to workplace. The nurse that was serving that old lady was under stress and this led to the ignorance of her job. The nurse couldn’t take proper care of the old lady and even after being called for multiple times, she was lost in her own world. As per Dirik & Seren (2017), management principles include one minor but effective principle of not mixing up the personal life with the professional life under any circumstances. This is unprofessionalism and it impacts the management accuracy. Leadership in the present scenario reveals that the head of the department was not an effective leader as he was carrying personal grudges with the doctors which led to the mis-communication and mismanagement of the files and details of the patient (Echevarria, Patterson & Krouse, 2017). Management principles also include leadership as the primary concern and thus lack of proper leadership led to a life taking scenario in the health organisation.
Major and Minor Themes Identified in the Incident
The behavioural theory of management and leadership theory both provides with a set of traits which is to be undertaken by each health care professional for delivering effective and productive services (Kantanen et al. 2017). Communication Theory is another important requirement for management, which provides with a platform to ensure that the services are authentic and accurate. The sensitivity in the health organisation is quite high which adds on to the requirement of enhancing communication skills within the professionals.
The experience I had in the practicing session that impacted me in a way that I took up the decision of being an active nurse with all the professional traits and requirements. I took up the decision of delivering quality service or no service; nothing would be in between these two. The organisation where I practiced carried multiple management issues which could have been amended or managed through taking up the following suggestions.
- The foremost recommendation is that the organisation should take up an effective communication system which is based on the advanced technology. The technological aspect should be considered in the communication sector of the organisation which could help in creating a productive system/. The communication tool could be some gadget or software where an update on communicating the message to the concerned party would be updated. This could help in keeping a track of the communication process and thus maintain all the records effectively. Any miss in passing on the message could be checked on time and thus this could reduce huge number of mistakes to take place.
- The second recommendation is that the organisation is advised to provide some professional development skills to its employees as this would help in reducing carrying of the personal grudges to the work place. Reduction in the mixing up of the personal and professional activities would save the organisation from inaccurate and ineffective services. The organisation should provide its employees with proper programs and seminars of professionalism.
- The third recommendation is that the leadership and management traits are to be instigated within the higher authorities of the organisation. The leaders of the organisation are required to improvise their leadership skills through acknowledging the quality of services and thus take decisions to improvise it. Leadership is a crucial part of an organisation and this is required to be improvised through proper enhancement of traits and skills.
The recommendations are provided through realizing the minor and major aspects of the problem in the organisation. The issues identified in the organisation are provided with productive recommendations these could help in gaining a position of effective working place.
Conclusion
The identification of the loopholes that existed in the organisation where I practiced helped me in realizing the consequences that could exist because of a minor mistake of a professional in health care or improper management consideration in the organisation. Health care is a critical organisation where the accuracy of each action and decision has major and long lasting consequences. The practicing years helped me in gaining an in depth and realistic scenario that could exist in nursing career and the mistakes that a health care professional could not afford to execute. Personal grudges or problems should never be a part of your work and this was stated in my education in almost every class. While practicing I witnessed the consequence of carrying personal issues to workplace. The nurse that was serving that old lady was under stress and this led to the ignorance of her job. The suggestions are made through realizing the minor demands of the scenario and thus the communication and management skills are specified to be improved. Through the journal my knowledge on nursing has improvised as it specified the sections which a nurse could not afford to carry.
References
Al?Yami, M., Galdas, P., & Watson, R. (2018). Leadership style and organisational commitment among nursing staff in Saudi Arabia. Journal of nursing management, 26(5), 531-539.
Asamani, A. (2016). Leadership styles in nursing management: implications for staff outcomes. Journal of Health Sciences, 6(1).
Bai, Y., Gu, C., Chen, Q., Xiao, J., Liu, D., & Tang, S. (2017). The challenges that head nurses confront on financial management today: A qualitative study. International journal of nursing sciences, 4(2), 122-127.
Dirik, H. F., & Seren Intepeler, S. (2017). The influence of authentic leadership on safety climate in nursing. Journal of nursing management, 25(5), 392-401.
Echevarria, I. M., Patterson, B. J., & Krouse, A. (2017). Predictors of transformational leadership of nurse managers. Journal of nursing management, 25(3), 167-175.
Ens, B., Bazylewski, S., & Duchscher, J. B. (2018). Emerging Nursing Leadership Issues. Leadership and Influencing Change in Nursing.
Kantanen, K., Kaunonen, M., Helminen, M., & Suominen, T. (2017). Leadership and management competencies of head nurses and directors of nursing in Finnish social and health care. Journal of Research in Nursing, 22(3), 228-244.
Pihlainen, V., Kivinen, T., & Lammintakanen, J. (2016). Management and leadership competence in hospitals: a systematic literature review. Leadership in Health Services.
Shirey, M. R. (2017). Leadership practices for healthy work environments. Nursing management, 48(5), 42-50.
Timmins, F. (2019). An overview of 5?year patterns and trends in the Journal of Nursing Management. Journal of Nursing Management.
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