NR703 Week 7 Leading Managing High-Value Healthcare Discussion

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NR703 Week 7 Leading Managing High-Value Healthcare Discussion

Purpose

The purpose of this discussion is to identify a practice problem and examine the material and human resources needed to support a fiscally responsible practice change solution to address the practice problem.

Instructions

For this discussion, review the lesson for this week and identify a practice problem. Using the practice problem, address the following:

  1. Investigate the material and human resources needed to support a fiscally responsible practice change solution to address the practice problem.
  2. Analyze the role of the advanced practice nurse in addressing the solution.
  3. Propose strategies for project leadership.

Construct your responses using the CARE Plan method.

Please click on the following link to review the DNP Discussion Guidelines on the Student Resource Center program page:

Also Read:

Professional DNP Leadership Capacity Assignment NR703 Week 7

Program Competencies

This discussion enables the student to meet the following program competences:

  1. Applies organizational and system leadership skills to affect systemic changes in corporate culture and to promote continuous improvement in clinical outcomes. (PO 6)
  2. Appraises current information systems and technologies to improve health care. (POs 6, 7)
  3. Creates a supportive organizational culture for flourishing collaborative teams to facilitate clinical disease prevention and promote population health at all system levels. (PO 8)

Course Outcomes

This discussion enables the student to meet the following course outcomes:

  1. Investigate the role of advanced nursing practice in innovation and transformation to propose solutions impacting healthcare systems. (PCs 2, 4; PO 6)
  2. Differentiate attributes of effective leaders and followers in influencing healthcare. (PCs 2, 4; PO 6)
  3. Assimilate attributes for interprofessional collaboration across healthcare settings. (PC 6; PO 8)
  4. Formulate selected strategies for leadership and influence across healthcare systems. (PC 6; PO 8)

Due Dates

  • Initial Post: By 11:59 p.m. MT on Wednesday
  • Follow-Up Posts: By 11:59 p.m. MT on Sunday

NR703 Week 7: Leading Healthcare’s Management Priorities Student Lesson Plan

Overview

  1. Applies organizational and system leadership skills to affect systemic changes in corporate culture and to promote continuous improvement in clinical outcomes. (PO 6)
  2. Appraises current information systems and technologies to improve health care. (POs 6, 7)
  3. Creates a supportive organizational culture for flourishing collaborative teams to facilitate clinical disease prevention and promote population health at all system levels. (PO 8)

Schedule

Section Read/Review/Complete Course Outcomes Due
Prepare Assigned Readings COs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Wednesday
Explore Lesson COs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Wednesday
Translate to Practice Discussion: Initial Post COs 2, 3, 4, 5 Wednesday
Translate to Practice Discussion: Follow-Up Posts COs 2, 3, 4, 5 Sunday
Translate to Practice Assignment COs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Sunday
Reflect Reflection COs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 No submission

Foundations for Learning

Start your learning this week by reviewing the following:

American Physical Therapy Association. (2018, February 22). Understanding the value of “value-based care” [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/en0Iw9bDo_Q

Student Learning Resources

Click on the following tabs to view the resources for this week.

Broome, M. E., & Marshall, E. S. (2021). Transformational leadership in nursing: From expert clinician to influential leader (3rd ed.). Springer Publishing Company.

  • Read Chapter 9

White, K., Dudley-Brown, S., & Terhaar, M. (2021). Translation of evidence into nursing and healthcare (3rd ed.). Springer Publishing Company.

  • Read Chapter 11

Learning Success Strategies

  • Reflect on previous discussions from NR715 and NR716 about the Global Burden of Disease (GBD), including pandemic responses, and consider how you, as a DNP-prepared nurse, will manage the problem in a practice setting.
  • Develop your ideas and thoughts through the interactive discussion. Review the discussion guidelines and rubric to optimize your performance.
  • You have access to a variety of resources to support your success. Click on the DNP Resources tab on the home page to access program and project resources.
  • Your course faculty is here to support your learning journey. Reach out for guidance with study strategies, time management, and course-related questions.

Interacting with Feedback

Each week your course faculty will provide feedback in the rubric and on any assignment you have submitted. Take a moment to review the following video on how to view rubric feedback in Canvas:

Review the following video on how to accept/reject track changes when viewing course faculty feedback on your assignment:

NR703 Week 7 Lesson – Leading & Managing High-Value Healthcare Management Priorities

Leadership’s Role in Materials Resource Management Across Systems

Planning strategically and operationally to address the disease conditions identified as the eight National Practice Problems and how they impact a healthcare organization requires sound fiscal and human resources management. Leading from the future includes strategically preparing to care for those who will need specialized services.

NR703 Week 7 Leading & Managing High-Value Healthcare Discussion

Consider how you, as a leader in a practice setting, might prepare to manage the resources required to address a hospital service line for one of the eight National Practice Problems causing increased mortality and morbidity in the setting. In the United States, illnesses such as ischemic heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, colorectal cancer, and lung and breast cancer are all common practice problems.

The magnitude of any one of these conditions can be intimidating for a leader charged with its intervention and management at the practice level. In your practice setting, a number of key leadership questions must be answered.

  • What should the strategic plan for this disease or condition include?
  • Which intervention(s) should be applied?
  • Who are the key stakeholders?
  • What and who are the needed resources?
  • How should I approach this challenge as a transformational leader?

Human and Materials Resource Management

It is important that DNP-prepared nurses understand the human capital required to apply an intervention in a practice change project. As we have determined in Week 2, it is first critical to identify the project’s stakeholders and discover the practice gaps through a needs assessment. Stakeholders will include not only the affected population who are treated at the practice site but also those key individuals who bring the expertise to treat, manage, finance, and support the project (Dang & Dearholt, 2018).

Responsible materials management requires you as a practice leader to ask questions about equipment, support services, supplies, and the necessary infrastructure to manage these assets. This may include interprofessional collaboration with key stakeholders from many different organizational departments, including materials management, finance, and maintenance. Clinical departments and human resources may also partner with you to determine the material requirements for clinical pathways and the additional expertise you may need to plan for disease management intervention.

Both human and materials resource management will require leadership strengths and management skills to orchestrate a successful interprofessional partnership. Leveraging the strengths and skillsets of professional experts in managing a service line becomes essential in today’s healthcare infrastructure.

Strategic Planning for Effective Leadership

Having an awareness of the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) environment, many healthcare organizations re-invent themselves to specialize in specific disease areas for healthcare delivery, such as cardiovascular or cancer treatment. Planning for those specialty clinicians, equipment, and required licenses involves strategic planning that often looks ahead five years or further.

Similar strategic planning may be required at a more granular or division-level scale. One approach for strategic planning involves the forward-looking creativity and flexibility of quantum leadership (Porter-O’Grady & Malloch, 2018), which focuses on future trends that engage innovative strategies to achieve potential future outcomes. Reflect on a specific GBD condition that may require you to take a quantum leap into the future to examine the resources that might be needed for an initiative in a practice setting.

Financial Fidelity in Leadership

The DNP-prepared nurse as a financial steward may be responsible for the budget. The DNP-prepared nurse often makes hard decisions about budgets that may affect personnel or patients. Effective managing of resources can be learned. With practice, you can learn to be proficient in resource allocation, even when managing resources to address a pandemic response or the burden of disease associated with the nation’s top causes of morbidity and mortality. Leaders have an ethical obligation to balance the health of the community and its resources.

Balancing costs and improving quality do not have to be mutually exclusive. Spending more may not in itself improve quality or enhance safety. Being financially responsible in a value-driven market implies that the leader makes informed decisions that will improve patient outcomes and maintain a financially viable operation.

One of the best assets most organizations have to assist nurse leaders in financial management is an accounting or finance support department. It is the DNP-prepared leader’s responsibility to leverage those assets to manage the financial environment. On any level, managing the GBD necessitates respect for and creativity about limited resources in a frugal healthcare economy.

Evaluating Performance at the Micro, Meso, and Macrosystems Levels

Evaluating the effectiveness of management methods, healthcare interventions, human performance, or practice change projects at any healthcare delivery level requires measurements to ensure that what you expect is what you inspect. Strategic plans are measured by operational outcomes to measure their effectiveness and determine if the strategic plan requires modification or reframing.

Budgets and financial plans are measured by quarterly financial analyses to determine if they are on track, over budget, or under budget. Effective human resource and materials management are assessed against projected benchmarks and prior-year comparisons, among other indices.

Practice change projects are usually measured by quantitative analysis, using methodologies adopted from research designs. While qualitative analysis is becoming more widespread, the most common measurements are quantitative methods, such a descriptive, pre-post measurement, and cohort comparison designs, all calculated for statistical significance.

One important consideration for project planning is to ensure that your measurement design is planned in advance for the type of intervention you are undertaking and that the statistical model is determined before the project is initiated and the data is collected.

Evaluating all performance outcomes, from materials management implementation to a practice change project, requires rigorous pre-planning and serious consideration by the leader. Without reliable measurements, performance cannot be assessed or improved.

Global, National, State, and Local Influence on Leadership Initiatives

Leading from the future as a caring DNP-prepared nurse implies that you have an awareness that all you do is connected to the whole. In a globalized world, this realization takes on even more significance. Traditional boundaries are changing, if not disappearing altogether. Even political divides and social borders take on new meaning for the responsibility of leaders in healthcare.

Quantum leadership theory (Porter-O’Grady & Malloch, 2018) and quantum caring leadership (Watson et al., 2018) have practical implications for you as you consider a practice change project. Inclusivity, leveraging, collaborating interprofessionally, and big-picture planning help to tie a specific practice problem and intervention to the greater initiative of a system. Likewise, using all the resources that the system has to offer a specific initiative promotes its successful implementation and continued sustainment. This is all connected.

Healthcare is not performed in a social vacuum but rather in a social environment. The political climate, social issues, and economic conditions at all levels of society affect decision-making, especially considering the ubiquitous GBD. Today’s nurses are learning from each other in different countries. The way nurses practice globally is changing through the influence of international nursing organizations, journals, and nursing education. DNP-prepared nurses must be cognizant of the world around them as they address the GBD on the micro, meso, and macrosystems levels.

NR703 Week 7 References

  • Dang, D., & Dearholt, S. (2018). Johns Hopkins nursing evidence-based practice: Model and guidelines. Sigma Theta Tau International.
  • Porter-O’Grady, T., & Malloch, K. (2018). Quantum leadership: Creating sustainable value in healthcare (5th ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning.
  • Watson, J., Porter-O’Grady, T., Horton-Deutsch, S., & Malloch, K. (2018). Quantum caring leadership: Integrating quantum leadership with caring science. Nursing Science Quarterly, 31(3), 253-258. https://doi.org/10.1177/0894318418774893

Managing Human Capital Sample Paper

Boon et al. (2018) define a human resource as a set of people who make up the workforce of an organization. The diverse nature of employees within an organization and the scarcity of human resources dictate the need for a management system for these employees. Human resource management (HRM) can be defined as management systems designed to ensure the effective and efficient utilization of human talent to accomplish organizational goals (Boon et al., 2018).

In the healthcare setting, nurse leaders ought to develop and acquire this pivotal ability for the prosperity of the health team as well as all its stakeholders. To that end, this paper focuses on the exploration of theoretical reflection of human resource management, description of relationship management, empowering, retention, and professional development of employees along with the Christian worldview of leading others.

Theoretical Reflection

A great theoretical model has exceptional significance for nurse practitioners as it satisfies the aim of prediction and understanding regarding the correlation of various variables that facilitate effective decision-making in case of uncertainty. It is therefore crucial that nurse leaders inaugurate and use theoretical models that authorize, prognosticate and comprehend the various effects of various human resource practices within the healthcare industry.

Several theoretical models have been used to delineate human resource management including but are not limited to the Human Capital theory, Best Practices model, and Resource-Based View model (Mohammed, 2019). The human capital theory, according to Wuttaphan (2017), describes how human beings can escalate their productive capacity through greater education and training. The model encourages nurse leaders to invest in human capital to gain a competitive advantage and sustainability in the complex healthcare industry.

On the other hand, the best practices theory encourages nurse leaders to identify and adopt human resource practices that are superior in the pool of human resource practices (Mohammed, 2019). These practices include profit sharing, employee participation in decision making, formal training, employment security, and performance-oriented appraisal. Consequently, these activities enhance the productivity of staff and optimize the quality of patient care.

Lastly, the Resource-Based View approach focuses on aligning human resource practices with organizational strategies by providing a conceptual and rationale for strategic human resource management (Mohammed, 2019). According to this model, human capital provides a competitive advantage only if it is unique, imperfectly imitable, adds positive value to the organization, and is unable to be completely substituted. This model invigorates nurse leaders to view human resources as a pool of talents and skills that underpins competitive advantage. This model further champions nurse leaders to center on internal resources as the competitive advantage sprawls in holding, obtaining, and utilizing internal resources in the advancement of healthcare.

Relationship Management

To achieve optimal performance and patient care outcomes, a nurse leader must be able to build indestructible individual and team relationships. Chitra and Shanthi (2019) describe employee relationship management as an art of overseeing the relation of various employees within the organization, bringing them together on a common platform, and guiding them to achieve their desired targets.

Consequently, a healthy relationship must be maintained among the employees as well as between the employer and the employees. Several strategies can be used by a nurse leader to ensure a formidable relationship. These include encouraging group activities, creating cross-functional teams, transparency in communication, holding meetings, and conducting surveys to understand how employees feel.

Transparency in communication is of utmost importance for a healthy relationship. A single point of contact must be determined to handle the queries of staff and to avoid confusion between employees and employers. This hierarchy should be uncomplicated. Similarly, Chitra and Shanthi (2019) recommend communication of vital information in the presence of all employees where everyone has the liberty to express his opinions freely.

Important information can also be put on a notice board or communicated through emails where it is accessible to all employees. Conducting regular meetings is another way of enhancing relationships within the healthcare setting. In these meetings, all employees should be encouraged to participate actively. The nurse leaders should take these chances to reward and recognize employees who have done better and encourage others to engage in their work.

Group activities further enhance healthy relationships within the healthcare industry. Social interactions through activities such as sports, mandatory lunches, and celebration of achievements make employees feel happy with a sense of belonging which leads to quality patient care (Chitra & Shanthi, 2019). Cross-functional teams as well as surveys to understand how employees feel ease tension within an organization and demonstrate to the staff that the management cares.

Further, a nurse leader can foster the development of effective relationships by cultivating an organizational culture that vividly stipulates policies for handling ordinary issues such as conflict, sexual harassment, wage, hour issues, and workplace safety issues. Subsequently, legal compliance, reduced conflict, increased productivity, and loyalty to the organization are among the benefits of healthy relationships among employees and between employees and employers.

Apart from internal relationship management, patient relationship management is pivotal for quality patient care. Patients, as well as their families, should be actively involved in decision-making concerning their care (Poku et al., 2017). As the US health system moves towards value-based care, the importance of deep patient-provider relationships cannot be overstated. Poku et al. (2017) highlight benefits such as reduced healthcare costs, better patient outcomes, and overall improvement of the image of the organization when patient relationship management strategies are executed.

Empowering Employees

Nurse leaders are expanding their enthusiasm for comprehending and creating an encouraging administrative and working environment to empower their staff. Empowering employees refers to giving employees a certain degree of autonomy and responsibility for decision-making in their daily work (Yin et al., 2017). This can be done in a variety of ways including providing necessary support, delegation, and motivation.

Employee support forms the basis for employee empowerment. Nurse leaders must provide all the necessary resources to their workers. Likewise, nurse leaders should involve their employees in decision making and goal setting as well as accepting their ideas and inputs. This reception of their ideas and provision of constructive feedback emancipates the employees to work towards achieving their targets.

Similarly, nurse leaders empower their employees through motivation. Motivational strategies such as clear communication of the vision of the organization and appreciation of staff efforts all increase the confidence of the employees (Jia et al., 2020). Prompt payment of salaries and wages along with bonuses and benefits all motivate employees.

In addition, nurse leaders can empower their employees through delegation of duties. Jia et al. (2020) advocate delegation of duties with the intent to grow and develop the capabilities and responsibilities of employees. In addition, clear boundaries within which the employees can freely act should be set and autonomy assigned over delegated duties. In the wake of empowerment, better practices, quality patient care, increased productivity, and effective communication are spotted.

Proactive Retention Strategies

Staff turnover is extortionate in the healthcare industry, influencing nurse leaders to execute strategies to decrease staff turnover. Diverse approaches are used by nurse leaders to prevent highly qualified and productive employees from leaving the healthcare industry. These include effective communication, organizational culture, benefits, rewards, salaries, and valuing employees. A fair, flexible, collaborative, and safe organizational culture is related to a low staff turnover. According to Nicholson (2021), such a culture is ideal for employees due as it is associated with an optimum work environment hence job satisfaction. Benefits packages, competitive salaries, compensations, and rewards play a pivotal role in attracting as well as retaining employees within the healthcare industry (Nicholson, 2021). This is due to the motivation and job satisfaction that come along with them.

Furthermore, effective communication as well as valuing employees within the healthcare industry are linked to low staff turnover. Effective communication is a priority to constructive effective employee-employee and employer-employee relationships (Young, 2021). On the other hand, recognizing and respecting employees makes them feel they are valued as part of the industry and therefore contribute to the accomplishment of the organizational vision. For instance, the realization of the employees’ skills and efforts and subsequently promoting them to higher ranks will surely retain them (Young, 2021). Retention of highly qualified staff within an organization contributes to social change by improving patient relations and quality of care whilst reducing the cost of healthcare.

Ongoing Professional Development Opportunities for Staff

Nurses across clinical settings encounter the disconcerting challenge of staying abreast of regulatory mandates, equipment updates, practice challenges, and other workplace suppositions (Bindon, 2017). This calls for ongoing professional development. However, different factors can hinder nurses’ endeavors to launch into their professional development, among them, limited access to educational resources, limited time, or cost concerns. Consequently, nurse leaders must implement strategies such as training, ongoing education, career development, mentoring, and employee development.

Nurse leaders apart from providing all the necessary tools and resources should effectuate professional training from the get-go. Bindon (2017) recommends the deployment of a training plan that encompasses a knowledge base of critical information as well as best practices. The training further should be continuous, offered by professionals, and have means for evaluation and assessment. Besides, nurse leaders should encourage ongoing education for their staff. The nursing staff should be encouraged to pursue further education through the provision of study leaves and even scholarships. The vital role of education in developing professionals cannot be overstated.

Furthermore, ongoing professional development can be achieved through mentoring. Bindon (2017) postulates skilled staff to incorporate the novice staff through coaching and mentoring. Through mentoring and coaching, knowledge is shared, and cross-departmental collaboration enhanced which allows employees to learn different sets of skills and expertise from their peers and therefore professional development.

Career and employee development are other ways to enhance professional development. Nurse leaders can develop the careers of their staff by promoting them to higher ranks in addition to organizing seminars and events. Strategies to escalate employee development result in personal development. These strategies include but are not limited to nurse leaders augmenting the emotional balance, intellectual growth, and physical health of their employees.

How your Christian Worldview Influence your Approach to Leading Others

Christianity plays a decisive role for many nurse leaders. It is both profoundly social and deeply personal. The Christian worldview influences a nurse’s approach to leading others by determining the leadership style as well as the leadership roles. A variety of leadership styles have been demonstrated in the bible.

King David and Solomon for instance, used autocratic type of leadership. However, Christianity advocates that nurse leaders employ servant leadership by following the example of the greatest servant leader, the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ encourages his disciples to ignore their greatness and be of service to others as Jesus himself came to serve and not to be served and sacrificed His life for the salvation of many (King James Bible, 2017, Matthew 20:25-28).

Leadership roles are also influenced by Christianity as it forms the backbone of ethics, values, and morals. Nurse leaders are encouraged to motivate their followers just as Nehemiah motivated the people to construct the wall of Jerusalem (King James Bible, 2017, Nehemiah 2:17). Similarly, nurse leaders are encouraged to express the power and influence of the love of God to their followers (King James Bible, 2017, Romans 5:5). Consequently, they should be able to correct the mistakes of their staff in the right way, avoid conflicts, be able to teach, and be gentle (King James Bible, 2017, 2 Timothy 2:23-26).

Conclusion

The benefits of a well superintended human capital cannot be overstated. The competitive advantage that highly satisfied, productive, and highly qualified human resources offer necessitates their empowerment, retention, professional development and relationship management. Nurse leaders inevitably must develop human resource management skills for optimum performance not to mention quality patient care.

References

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