Leadership in Nursing: Service Improvement in Healthcare Settings

This report delves into the critical role of leadership in nursing, specifically focusing on strategies for improving medical services within healthcare settings. The author, a nursing team leader, addresses the challenges of nurse shortages, particularly the reluctance of staff to adapt to changing work schedules. The report highlights the importance of leadership in fostering optimal patient outcomes and discusses how effective leadership can improve service quality, reduce costs, and minimize clinical errors. It examines the complexities of healthcare practices and the need for proactive leadership to address issues such as staff turnover and the integration of new technologies. The report emphasizes the significance of understanding the interactions between nursing staff and supervisors, and how this understanding can lead to improved ward conditions and better patient care. The author stresses the need for comprehensive information gathering, data analysis, and the application of leadership principles to address workplace challenges, ultimately aiming to improve the quality of care provided. The report suggests strategies such as the development of flexible scheduling, addressing staff concerns, and fostering an environment of open communication and collaboration to create a more supportive and efficient healthcare environment.

Running Head: LEADERSHIP IN NURSING: IMPROVEMENT IN MEDICAL SERVICE
LEADERSHIP IN NURSING: IMPROVEMENT IN MEDICAL SERVICE
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2LEADERSHIP IN NURSING: IMPROVEMENT IN MEDICAL SERVICE
Healthcare system in China are considered one of the most successfully ranked health
care system globally (Wong et al, 2015). Almost all the healthcare systems have been focused
and determined. They help to promote the prevention and help in developing better interventions
to manage the diseases that are rapidly increasing. The preventive, productive and people-centred
initiative indicated that the quality of care that is served, remains to be one of the enduring
concern in majority of the organization and management of health care. Quality has been
considered as one of the most relatively risk free articulation of policy and is relatively popular.
Service improvements (Craig, 2018) in health care can help in the improving the provision of
care, help in cutting down the costs, further help in savings, reduce clinical errors and provide
appropriate streamline services. Although, the initiatives to improve the healthcare and solving
the issues with respect to the nurses, it may not be inadequate for improving the patient outcomes
and the quality of care that is being provided. As healthcare community faces various economic
downturn, upcoming retirement of leaders and employee shortages along with presence of
stressful environments. The need of active leadership is needed in order to provide active optimal
patient outcomes. The paper below discusses about the need of service improvement that is
required due to the active shortages of nurses due to heavy work load or change in the work
timings. The paper deals with the complexity of the health care practices make the initiative to
improve the services, pose as a challenge. Lastly, the paper discusses how taking up the role of
active leadership and displaying skills can help in the process of providing optimal care and
ultimately help in the service development.
The discussions with respect to hospital quality, nursing care and the efficiency of the
nurses while providing nursing care are often seen to be independent irrespective of any other.
The arrangements that take place in order to assure the performance of the hospital nursing in

3LEADERSHIP IN NURSING: IMPROVEMENT IN MEDICAL SERVICE
order to improve the quality and help in achieving effective control of the hospital costs. The
nurses are usually found to be very critical while providing their effective, efficient care and high
quality care. The main issue that I face as a team leader in my work place is the active losing or
transfer of my team members to either leave the job or shift to some other department of the
hospital. The main problem arises when the nurse are asked to shift to the duty from the morning
to the evening. Being in a healthcare field, the role of our duty has to be very spontaneous, but
the nurses present in my team are reluctant to shift the timings of their work timings. The reason
that they state are their reluctance towards changing their lifestyle. For instance, yesterday there
was a staff who usually gets off from the duty at 5 in the evening. However, when her ward
manager suddenly asks her to report to duty at 10:00 p.m. at night, the staff states that she cannot
manage her household chores and her duty together if she is called in the wee hours of the night.
In an emergency related job as ours, even being a family person one should be able to know that
duty as a nurse comes first and that we need to make amendments in order to fulfil both the
family and professional duties together. With the rapid incorporation of changes into the daily
lifestyle are the cause of the rapid increase in the chronic diseases and ultimately becoming a
burden of ill health. As a result of this there is an additional increase in the rush of the patients
and the need to provide adequate care is needed. Therefore, it has more likely become a grave
issue for the loss of productivity in the health care workplace and have become an issue for the
rise in the mortality rate. Moreover, due to the reluctance of reporting to work at the desired time
or requesting of sick leave pose a great hindrance in the way of providing optimal health care. In
order to achieve such a possibility where the medical services are needed to be improved,
researches are conducted on the basis of theoretical and methodological factors, which in turn
might help in the increase of the efficiency of the interventions and improve the quality of life as

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the outcome. Implementing ways to control the nurse shortages and raise responsibilities
amongst the nurses that might help in promoting health and life for the patient and release the
burden of chronic diseases.
It has been observed that there is actively less cooperation and coordination in the
services that are provided to the population in order to provide better care and support to the
patient are actively affected and hindered by various other variables. The hospital system is
observed to suffer from various shortfalls in term of quality and from the gradual rise in the costs
of providing medical care. Improving the quality of care and managing the nurse shortages has
been observed to become a high level public and private enterprise. The cost of the new
technology have become one of the prime reasons for the increase in the budget of health cost as
well the sudden downfall in the amount of nurses. Additionally, their active participation to any
shift timings have eventually became the reason for the patients to avoid the services until they
are in grave need of the same. The willingness of the nurses and other health professionals to
work for a longer extended period has been one of the reason to diminish with the eventual
aging, inability to manage both household and work duties (Bai, Lai & Guo, 2016), heavy filing
of sick leaves and ultimately lead to the shortage of nurses in the respective department. The
number of women in the nursing area are seen to be more on the higher side as the individuals
seek to set a balance in between work and family life. These problems have directly impacted the
supply and the distribution of the health workforce. Studies and surveys show that there have
been an active shortage in the nurses and various other medical personnel. The shortages of the
nurses are found out to be more significant in the particular areas of care such as the geriatric
ward, mental health or the disability ward. At the same time, there has been rapid growing
concern about the increase in the budget of the hospital. Controlling the hospital costs have also

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been one of the main hindrance and have a major effect on the employment of the nurses. This
can be considered one of the main reason for the shortage of nurses and have attributing to the
perception of the quality of the work life a nurse being low.
The discussions of hospital in order to provide optimal hospital quality, hospital nursing
and controlling cost can be considered to be independent of one another. As a team leader, these
discussions need to be differentiated and the goals should be implemented by assuring the
appropriateness and the performance of the applied nursing. The need to improve the quality of
care and reduce the probability of the reducing the nursing shortage (Amadi, 2015) in the
department are also needed to be harmonized. The incorporation of the intervention is processed
by the using the nurses and getting them involved in the process while improving the quality and
efficiency. Emerging models (Nirel et al, 2015), displaying the involvement of the nurses can be
incorporated by involving all the hospital staff along with the application of leadership qualities
from the authority levels. The process of improvement helps in the engagement of the front-line
staff, that help in achieving and sustaining the sudden changes caused due to the shifting of the
nurses into various other departments. Development of the models in the field of healthcare has
proven to be quite challenging. One of such model created is named as the conservative model,
which is based on the hospital specifically. The approach based on the effective demand for the
health services are also used for identifying the demand for the medical or the nursing workforce.
The models help further in assuming that the need for nursing workforce hours are completely
dependent on the effective demand for health services. The number of the nurses that employers
are willing to employ are directly proportional with respect to the work environment or the
changes in the health services. The model also helps in creating a survey amongst the nurses and
promote about the developments they can expect in their career. The nurses are recommended

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and helped to obtain the highest level of education, which shall help them in paving their way to
success in the field of nursing. Speaking to the nurses and discussing about their issues with the
time flexibility and planning the schedules accordingly can also help in dealing with the
problem. The nurses are also allowed to voice out or register their concerns and share their
ideologies to improve the services that are provided. This in turn will keep the nurses involved
with the service and ultimately help in providing optimal care.
The structural positioning if the nursing leader is considered very important, as they are
very essential for ensuring the empowerment of the nurses and help in meeting and adjusting to
the adaptations that are required to change the environment. Nurse administrators as members of
first line are responsible for bringing in improvements in the hospital setting. The role of nurse
administrators has increasingly become much more relevant owing to their calls for cost
cutting, rationalization, improvements in medical technology and shortened periods of patient
stay. Various approaches have been applied with this role in order to improve the skills of nurse
administrators to facilitate change. Cross-disciplinary analysis, such as behavioral studies, can
also provide valuable insights, which would allow the nursing managers to improve their
leadership skills. As a nursing team leader, understanding the interactions between the nursing
staff and the supervisors regarding the changes in the duty or the lack of their motivation to work
in the hospital was immediately looked into. While implementing changes, surveys with respect
to theoretical sampling was conducted. Information were gathered to address problems such as
the reluctancy to work in the night shifts or not being able to manage in between household
chores and the nursing job were discussed. The data analysis, such as time span as a manager,
hospital features, and interactions between nurse managers and assistant nurse managers were
also looked into. Information from the staff nurses has been used to better understand

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relationships and ward conditions in the subordinate studies. As a nursing team leader, I have
made a concerted effort to gather comprehensive information on wards such as the turnover rate,
the profiles of staff nurses, number of incidents and the interactions between nurses and doctors
In order to further examine, the information regarding the nature of occurrences and the possible
underlying causes were comprehended. Judging the ward's issues often aided in determining shift
results. Making numerous decisions centered on not only my own personal belief in nursing or
leadership as well as principles including the purpose of the hospitals or the policies of the
nursing organization has helped to address the workplace problem. In nursing, the leadership
phenomenon has been regarded as the most interactive process. Here the followers, the patients
or the individuals who need to be motivated and encouraged in order to achieve a specific
objective. Moreover, as a team leader understanding the issue of the nurses and dealing with
them also are quite necessary to handle the shortage of the nurses. Application of new rotational
schedules and providing the nurses with better career prospective also help in dealing with the
problem. Additionally, while solving the issue with respect to the improvement in services can
also be accelerated with proper leadership skills. With the provision of proper leadership skills,
the nurses can be motivated regarding their involvement in the provision of the medical services.
Implementing leadership in nursing and practicing a healthy and supportive relationship
with the patients or any affected individual shall help in improving the nurse and patient
camaraderie. The paper discusses the ways with which the nurses can be made more involved in
their line of duty. It also helps in dealing with scheduling issue, which becomes one of the major
problem to be dealt with. Speaking to the nurses and taking in their ideologies have been proven
to be useful. Equipping the nursing force with maximum amount of skills are necessary to make
any kind of positive changes in the medical service as they can help in the development of the

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patient care. With the implementation of correct ways all the hindrances can be resolved and the
medical services provided can be improved as well.

9LEADERSHIP IN NURSING: IMPROVEMENT IN MEDICAL SERVICE
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