Healthcare Discussion: Leadership and Communication in Healthcare

This discussion board post explores several critical aspects of healthcare, particularly focusing on the care of older adults. The first discussion addresses the growing population of elderly patients with chronic diseases, emphasizing the importance of physical and mental health treatments. It highlights the physical changes associated with aging, such as skin conditions and reduced physical activity, and stresses the need for healthcare professionals to educate and support older patients through holistic approaches. The second discussion focuses on preoperative assessments for older adults, emphasizing the need to go beyond disease-based assessments and consider factors like medication use, cognitive impairment, and functional status. The importance of screening tests and communication between surgical teams is also highlighted. The third discussion emphasizes effective communication as a crucial element of nursing care, highlighting its impact on patient satisfaction and clinical outcomes. It contrasts ineffective communication with a case study where a nurse successfully connects with patients by identifying common ground. The final discussion focuses on the importance of effective leadership in healthcare settings, emphasizing the need for leaders to use problem-solving procedures, maintain group efficiency, and encourage others. It also highlights the role of evidence-based medicine and nursing in quality care and organizational engagement. The assignment provides valuable insights into the complexities of healthcare for older adults, effective communication, and leadership.

Running head: HEALTHCARE
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Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Discussion 1:
There is a huge growing population of older patients in the United States suffering from
chronic diseases who needs serious treatment both physically and mentally. Though there are
more than enough differences noted in the physical assessment of a middle aged and an older
adult, most significant is the physical appearance characterized by skin wrinkles, dark patches on
some areas of the skin, persistent skin diseases, dark spots and other skin issues. The most
prevalent being the winkles on the skin implying the age of a person. Other physical features
includes unable to walk at a high pace, illness, dizziness and others. Skin diseases can be the
result of the physical activity they were involved in. The older adults lack the knowledge of skin
treatments, maintenance or precautions needed for their skin like a middle aged person do. They
even lack the energy and willingness to do the same as a result of which they often develop skin
diseases and wrinkles. Wrinkles are inevitable in the aging process but they can be reduced to a
certain extent by taking extra care to the skin and maintaining a healthy diet and being involved
in physical activity. Most of the older adults are not involved in tedious physical work that
eventually increases the probability of chronic diseases due to physical inactivity (Lee & Ory,
2013). Since regular physical activity helps to improve both the physical and mental activity as
well as prevent the occurrence of chronic diseases like heart diseases, obesity, cognitive
impairments, metabolic diseases, osteoporosis and muscular weaknesses, older adults must be
kept informed about the benefits of physical activity and ensure that they meet the minimum
physical activity required to maintain health (McPhee et al., 2016). The healthcare professionals
should observe and educate them about the opportunities and ways to take care of their health.
They should be able to treat them using holistic approach. The healthcare professionals should be
able to assist the older patients the care and give them an opportunity to talk about their feelings

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and share everything that made them depressed. They should be provided with the mental and
spiritual needs beside medication that will promote their health resulting into an increased health
outcome.
Discussion 2:
A comprehensive preoperative assessment of the older adults requires expanding beyond
disease-based or organ based assessments. The key areas assessed prior to surgery especially in
the older adults include use of multiple medications, risk of malnutrition, cognitive impairment,
co morbidities, functional status and frailty. It is mandatory for the surgeons to know the number
of medications and what specific drugs are being used by the elderly patients before surgery.
Accessing the health information prior to surgery helps avoiding complications after and in the
course of the surgery. There are some screenings done before surgery like the preoperative tests
including pulmonary function, chest radiograph, electrocardiogram, non-invasive stress, white
blood count, serum glucose, urinalysis, coagulation, platelet count tests and electrolyte tests o
ensure the overall health of the patients and the surgery is done based on those evaluations
(Kumar C, 2019). If any complications are found during in the assessment, immediate should be
communicated to surgical teams to allow inpatient interventions that reduces the risk of
preoperative complications and other health issues. Pre operative assessment enables to
determine the overall health of the patient prior to surgery and also ensures that the patient is fit
and capable enough to undergo the surgery. Older adults needs more care and monitoring when it
comes to pre surgery assessments, compared to that of middle aged adults, since they have
impaired activity, cardiac problems and other associated health diseases and they are more
susceptible to side effects due to the use of a combination of drugs (Akhtar, MacFarlane &
Waseem, 2013).

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Discussion 3:
Effective communication is one of the essential factors in good nursing care. Effective
communication between nurses and patients will improve the quality of care, clinical outcomes
and will also enhance patient satisfaction (Park, 2017). Effective communication between nurses
is, however, the greatest task to nurses and involves much more than skill and knowledge. To do
so, nurses must be courteous, kind, sincere and should be able to comprehend and assist their
patients. They should also take moment to interact to the patient with the required
confidentiality, and should not overlook that this communication involves individuals who attend
the sick individual; therefore, all participants must understand the language of communication.
Good communication is not just focused on nursing skills, but also on education and knowledge
(Kourkouta & Papathanasiou 2014). In the above scenario, the nurse in the day shift complained
about the family and showed disgust because she thought that the family is difficult to deal with.
However, the protagonist proves that wrong through communicating effectively with the
patients. It has been revealed in the case study that in most of the cases, nurses cannot align with
the requirements of the patients and does just the responsibilities and completes the to-do-list. As
a result, there is a gap between the requirement of the patient and that of the nurses that
eventually makes difficult for the nurses to adjust in those situations and assist patients by taking
care of them holistically. The protagonist, on the other hand, started a conversation by tracing the
common points to develop the structure of the conversation that made it easier for both the nurse
and the patients to coordinate with each other.
Discussion 4:
Effective leaders must use problem solving procedures, maintain group efficiency, and
develop group identification. They should also be dynamic, enthusiastic, motivating, solution-

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oriented, and seeking to encourage others. These features must be applied by leader nurses in
order to gain the recognition and confidence of group members and to guide the growth of
clinical exercise. Through their effective style of leadership, they will be able to influence the
successful development of other staff, ensure that professional standards are upheld and allow for
the growth of competent practitioners. Effective health practitioners ' leadership is crucial for
quality development and care inclusion. Evidences-based medicine and nursing are today
commonly known as the tools to build efficient, high-productivity and quality-care health
organizations (Joseph & Huber, 2015). Quality care is an essential element for the achievement
of high levels of productivity within healthcare organizations and is defined as the extent to
which the probability of achieving the health outcomes is increased, in line with the updated
expertise and skills in health care services. Leadership has been acknowledged as an important
measure of the development of quality organizational culture and efficient healthcare outcomes.
This has an effect on the organizational engagement of nurses and in turn has a greater work
satisfaction, greater efficiency, and nursing maintenance, the safety of patients and the overall
security climate and positive health outcomes (Thomas, Seifert & Joyner, 2016).

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References:
Akhtar, A., MacFarlane, R. J., & Waseem, M. (2013). Suppl 3: Pre-Operative Assessment and
Post-Operative Care in Elective Shoulder Surgery. The open orthopaedics journal, 7,
316.
Joseph, M. L., & Huber, D. L. (2015). Clinical leadership development and education for nurses:
prospects and opportunities. Journal of healthcare leadership, 7, 55.
Kourkouta, L., & Papathanasiou, I. V. (2014). Communication in nursing practice. Materia
socio-medica, 26(1), 65.
Kumar C, e. (2019). Preoperative Assessment in Older Adults: A Comprehensive Approach. -
PubMed - NCBI. Retrieved 21 July 2019, from
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30215973
Lee, W., & Ory, M. (2013). The Engagement in Physical Activity for Middle-Aged and Older
Adults with Multiple Chronic Conditions: Findings from a Community Health
Assessment. Journal of Aging Research, 2013, 1-8. doi:10.1155/2013/152868
McPhee, J., French, D., Jackson, D., Nazroo, J., Pendleton, N., & Degens, H. (2016). Physical
activity in older age: perspectives for healthy ageing and frailty. Biogerontology, 17(3),
567-580. doi:10.1007/s10522-016-9641-0
Park, S. (2017). Differences between nurses and patients' perception of nurses' communication
skills. Korean Journal of Adult Nursing, 29(2), 166-176.
Thomas, T. W., Seifert, P. C., & Joyner, J. C. (2016). Registered nurses leading innovative
changes. OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 21(3).