Effective Approaches for Leadership and Management

Effective Approaches for Leadership and Management
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Nurse leaders and managers should understand different issues impacting healthcare practice to devise feasible strategies to address such problems. One problem affecting healthcare organizations' performance is nurse staffing ratios. This paper discusses the value of nurse staffing ratios on patient safety and care quality outcomes, the professional standards of practice relevant to this problem, nursing leadership and management roles, and the leadership style that coincides with the need to ensure optimal nurse staffing levels.
Nurse Staffing Ratios and Impacts on Care Quality and Patient Safety
Nursing staff comprise fifty percent of healthcare professionals globally, and the cost of offering inpatient nursing care remains one of the fundamental drivers of costs in healthcare systems. Providing adequate nurse staffing thresholds that satisfy patient demand is crucial in delivering cost-effective healthcare. Nurses' bedside vigilance ensures positive patient safety and care outcomes. It is plausible, therefore, to argue that assigning rising numbers of clients or patients undermines the nurses' ability to offer safe care. Fundamental factors influence nurse staffing, including admissions numbers, patient acuity, staff skill expertise and mix, discharges, transfers, nursing unit layout, technology, and other resource availability. Research indicates a relationship between nurse staffing ratios and patient safety outcomes, with a heightened risk of adverse patient safety incidents, morbidity, and, in severe cases, mortality being recorded as the number of nurses per patient reduces (Phillips et al., 2021). In addition, the lack of skilled nurses and insufficient nurse staffing ratios contribute to poor job satisfaction and burnout in nurses, undermining the quality of care delivered. Insufficient nurse staffing ratios imply that the hospital lacks enough nurses to monitor patient treatment progress and perform therapeutic interventions, jeopardizing care quality (Peng et al., 2023).
Professional Standards of Practice
The American Nurses Association (ANA) maintains the principles of nurse staffing to assist healthcare administrators in identifying and designing policies and processes to augment nurse staffing ratios for the best interest of nurses and their patients. The five professional standards of practice or principles that must be demonstrated to address nurse staffing issues and maintain professional conduct include healthcare consumers, inter-professional teams, workplace culture, practice environment, and evaluation. Regarding healthcare consumer standards of practice, nurse staffing decisions must be anchored on the needs and number of the respective healthcare consumers, groups, families, populations, and communities served. Concerning inter-professional teams, the community's particular needs should be at the center of determining the viable clinical competencies needed for registered nurses (RNs) practicing within an area. It is also crucial to regularly monitor and track specific indicators such as nurse burnout, workplace injuries, satisfaction, turnover, and retention because ...