University Essay: Clinical Leadership and Medication Systems

This essay delves into the critical role of clinical leadership in the healthcare industry, focusing on the integration of electronic medication systems. It begins by highlighting the prevalence of medical errors and the potential of these systems to reduce them, thereby improving patient care and organizational efficiency. The essay then explores the benefits of adopting such systems, including reduced errors, enhanced nurse efficiency, and improved clinical governance. Furthermore, it examines Lewin's change management model, outlining the stages of unfreezing, change, and refreezing, and how they apply to the implementation of electronic medication systems. The essay also discusses the situational leadership style as the most suitable approach for nurse leaders during this transition, contrasting it with the transformational style. Finally, it addresses potential resistance from nurses and patients and suggests strategies for overcoming these challenges, concluding with the importance of innovation in healthcare and the positive impact of electronic medication systems.

Running head: CLINICAL LEADERSHIP
Clinical Leadership
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note:

1CLINICAL LEADERSHIP
The health care industry is a very wide one and is mainly concerned with providing
effective health care services to the patients so as to help them improve the quality of the
lives that they lead (Finlay, Rothman & Smith, 2014). However, it is often seen that there are
errors or mistakes that are being provided to the patients and this often has catastrophic
results (Cresswell et al., 2016). It is precisely in this particular context that the electronic
medication system gains significance. This is important since it is seen that year thousands of
patients receive wrong kind of medications for the diseases which they are suffering because
of the diverse kinds of human errors and it is to overcome this particular problem that the
diverse health care organizations are adopting the electronic medication system within their
framework (Finlay, Rothman & Smith, 2014). This essay discusses about the benefits which
the integration of such a system is likely to provide to health care organizations and also the
patients, the change management which would be suitable for the integration of the required
technology and finally the leadership style that the health care organizations can follow for
bringing about the necessary change.
The electronic medication system provides diverse kinds of benefits not only to the
health care organizations and the professionals but also to the patients as well. Firstly, the use
of this particular innovation helps the health care organizations and also the professionals
who are related to them to reduce the diverse kinds of human errors during the time of
providing medication to the patients (Cresswell et al., 2016). Furthermore, the effective use
of this particular innovation enhances the efficiency of the registered nurses and other health
care professionals during the time of providing medication to the patients during the hospital
rounds (King et al., 2014). The use of this particular process at the same time reduces the
amount of burnout among the registered nurses and other health care professionals regarding
the workload that they need to handle (Shanafelt et al., 2016). In addition to these, the
effective use of this particular system improve the quality of care and other related services

2CLINICAL LEADERSHIP
provided by the registered nurses to the patients and helps them in a significant manner in the
processes of clinical governance and also in the diverse kinds of decision making processes
(Ohashi et al., 2014). These in short are some of the main reasons why the health care
organization under discussion here should integrate this particular innovation for providing
effective treatment services to the patients.
Lewin’s change management model is one of the most commonly models for the
process of integrating diverse kinds of changes within the framework of various
organizations. The health care organization under discussion here can also take the help of
this particular change management model for the purpose of incorporating the electronic
medication system within the health care organization. Lewin’s change management model
consists of three stages or steps which are necessary for the integration of the diverse kinds of
changes within the mould of a particular organization, namely, unfreeze, change and refreeze
(Cameron & Green, 2015). These three stages can be seen as the three steps or milestones
that a particular organization needs to achieve for the effective integration of a required
change (Cameron & Green, 2015).
The nurse leader at the stage of unfreeze will have to analyze the status quo of the
health care organization and at the same time make the other nurses aware of the benefits that
the use of the electronic medication is likely to provide to them (Cummings, Bridgman &
Brown, 2016). This in short is likely to create the need for the change not only among the
nurses but also within the health care organization under discussion here. The required time
framework for this particular stage would be approximately one month. The second or the
stage of change would require the nurse leader to not only integrate the innovation of
electronic medication within the health care organization but at the same time to educate the
nurses as regarding the manner in which to effectively utilize this particular innovation for
providing better quality of treatment services to the patients (Cummings, Bridgman & Brown,

3CLINICAL LEADERSHIP
2016). This particular milestone is likely to take another one month for its achievement. The
final stage would be the stage of refreeze which will require the nurse leader to integrate this
particular innovation within the culture of the concerned health care organization so as to
achieve the desired outcomes for the achievement of which the change was incorporated
within the organization in the first place (Cummings, Bridgman & Brown, 2016). The
achievement of this particular milestone is likely to take one month duration.
The nurse leader for the effective integration of the innovation of electronic
medication system within the health care organization can follow the situational style of
leadership. The major precept of this particular model is the fact that the use of one
particular model of leadership does not suffice the modern day leaders and on the contrary
they need to modify their leadership styles on the basis of the merits or the importance of the
diverse situations that they are dealing with (McCleskey, 2014). Furthermore, each of these
situations, are not only unique but different from each other and does they need to be treated
in separate manner (Thompson & Glasø, 2015). The use of this particular leadership is likely
to help the nurse leader in a significant manner during the implementation of the desired style
since the nurse leader is likely to come across diverse kinds of situations during the
implementation of the desired change which he or she will have to resolve in an effective
manner for the change to be successful (Thompson & Glasø, 2015).
The transformational style of leadership is another style of leadership which has
gained a significant amount of prominence in the present times (Banks et al., 2016). The
major precept of this particular style of leadership is the fact that the diverse leaders needs to
lead the followers by example and at the same time take the help of concept of motivation to
help the followers to achieve the desired goals (Tepper et al., 2018). However, at the same
time it needs to be said that the use of this particular style of leadership would not help the
nurse leader in a significant manner during the process of the integration of change since it

4CLINICAL LEADERSHIP
will help the nurse leader to effectively deal with the diverse situations which he or she is
likely to come across during the process of the implementation of the electronic medication
system (Banks et al., 2016).
The primary resistance that the nurse leader is likely to face will be from the nurses
who are used to the manual method of medication since this will require them to not only
change their work practice but also to undergo training (Cummings, Bridgman & Brown,
2016). However, this can be overcome by making the nurses realize the benefits that the
innovation is likely to provide them and also by providing effective training. The second
resistance that the change is likely to face is from the patients since even in the present times
the patients like to keep manual prescription records and use manual methods (Cameron &
Green, 2015). However, this particular resistance can be overcome through making the
patients realize about the diverse benefits that the use of such system is likely to provide to
them.
To conclude, the use of diverse kinds of innovations within the health care industry
has gained significant amount of prominence and they have significantly improved the
quality of the health care services provided to the patients. The innovation of electronic
medication system is one such innovation which seeks to improve the quality of the
medication provided to the patients and thereby to reduce the human errors in the process.
However, the integration of this particular innovation within the various health care
organizations is likely to require the effective use of diverse change management models and
also the effective mitigation of the resistance from not only the patients but also the health
care professionals.

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