Nurse leaders not only advocate for patient's rights, but they are also in charge of promoting the workplace vision. While general nurses assess treatment results, participate in prevention efforts, and evaluate health policies, nurse leaders are responsible for daily patient care processes and ensuring continuous quality improvement in overall patient care.
This article further explores the role of nurse leadership in creating a culture of quality improvement and patient safety.
The role of nurse leaders in promoting quality improvement
Nurse leaders have a role in ensuring that care delivery is of the highest quality. This can only be achieved by helping other staff understand quality improvement measures. Here is how leaders can foster a culture of quality in healthcare facilities and organizations.
By creating policies around quality improvements
Nurse leaders work with other stakeholders to develop policies that enhance patient care through quality improvement, starting with researching areas that need improvement. The leaders and other team members collaboratively create evidence-based policies and communicate them to staff to ensure they follow safe and effective quality practices.
These policies can address nurse-to-patient ratios, educational initiatives, and staff communication styles. All these factors impact the quality of care provided to patients.
Through overseeing nursing units
Nurse leaders regularly monitor and evaluate care units for quality improvement. They can visit the nursing units to ensure nurses and other care providers follow standardized procedures and protocols that maintain high-quality care. Continuous monitoring also helps leaders identify areas for improvement where they can develop solutions and implement evidence-based interventions to ensure quality patient care.
Through educating and training nursing staff
A nurse leader is responsible for ensuring that nursing staff and other care providers go through training on the best practices in patient care. Continuous learning is essential to keep a team updated on quality care practices. Nurse leaders can organize training workshops, seminars, or sessions covering medication safety, infection control, and implementing evidence-based practice. This equips them with the skills and knowledge they need to provide high-quality care.
Continuous learning also applies to nurse leaders. They must constantly stay on top of emerging technologies, trends, and best practices in quality care throughout their nursing career. Having updated knowledge and skills will help them lead teams effectively.
Advocate for resource allocation
A nurse leader’s core responsibility lies in advocating for patients and the nursing profession. The Journal of Nursing states that advocacy can also include actions to ensure a positive work environment and proper resource allocation.
Nurse leaders need to advocate for proper medical equipment, adequate nursing staff, and the use of the latest technology in delivering care. Nurse leaders must collaborate with senior leadership and other stakeholders to secure the required resources that can be used to implement quality improvement in care units successfully.
Ensuring regulatory compliance
Nurse leaders ensure that nursing staff and other care providers under them comply with regulatory standards. By constantly evaluating a department, they ensure everyone understands the quality standards to follow. Furthermore, they can then identify non-compliance areas and devise ways to uphold the standards.
The role of nurses in fostering a culture of safety
Nurse leaders can be nurse executives, change nurses, or nurse managers. A nurse leader bridges the gap between the organization’s leadership and the frontline healthcare providers.
Any nurse looking to advance to an oversight or administrative role in nursing should consider pursuing masters in nursing leadership and management jobs. The University of Indianapolis, for example, is the perfect place to study online for a Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) degree with a focus on healthcare systems leadership. The degree will equip Registered Nurses (RNs) with essential leadership skills and healthcare knowledge, preparing them for a healthcare administration and nursing leadership career. Nurses will learn about the multifaceted role that includes clinical expertise and critical skills in management and leadership, as well as creating a culture of safety.
A culture of safety encompasses shared beliefs, values, and perceptions that work together to create a continuous effort to reduce harm and commit to safety. Creating a safety culture in an organization involves sharing responsibility, being open to new ideas, being willing to learn from mistakes, and ensuring continuous improvement. A nurse leader must establish a safety culture to ensure the wellbeing of patients, colleagues, and the organization itself. Implementing a culture of safety improves patient safety and leads to better patient outcomes.
Fostering a culture of safety can include the following:
Facilitating open communication
A safety culture can only be created through open and honest communication. Colleagues and other staff members need to be open and discuss any issues around safety that their nurse leader needs to address. Leaders must clarify that reporting incidents won’t lead to negative repercussions. Furthermore, they must listen to some of their ideas and work together to ensure everyone is comfortable reporting safety concerns. This is the only way to get valuable safety feedback.
Additionally, nurse leaders must encourage nurses to communicate closely with patients to spot potential or existing safety risks. Open communication across different levels is vital as it ensures everyone knows their roles in managing safety.
Adhere to set safety guidelines and recommendations
Nurse leaders ensure staff members understand and follow regulatory safety guidelines to promote a safety culture. These guidelines are established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
Leaders can find guidelines and recommendations for implementing safety practices, documenting patient records, infection control measures, and more on fostering a culture of safety in healthcare from these authorities. Their guidelines can teach nurse leaders to incorporate evidence-based practice into daily safety routines, ensuring they provide safer patient care and guaranteeing better patient outcomes.
Creating a continuous learning culture
Nurse leaders have a role in creating a continuous learning culture among other healthcare staff to create a diverse team. They must update them on the latest safety practices and other safety guidelines. Additionally, leaders should facilitate training on new equipment before it is used.
This creates a team that has the proper education on safety event prevention and is proactive. Ultimately, this promotes safety culture sustainability. Additionally, they can lead by example through learning from previous mistakes and looking for ways to improve in the future.
Part of establishing a safety culture involves empowering staff. Sometimes, nurse leaders may have to delegate specific tasks to ensure the team is actively involved in safety initiatives.
Continuously review the safety practices in place
Nurse leaders are responsible for reviewing the system regularly to determine if there are safety system defects. Furthermore, they need to check the system concerns that might affect the safety of the patients, staff, and the organization.
They also shouldn’t forget to review safety reports, as they could gather valuable insights that they can use to strengthen safety practices in the organization. Nurse leaders can encourage other healthcare staff to participate in the review and discuss safety reports individually and in team settings. Initiating these discussions will convey that the nurses' and patients’ safety is a priority.
By identifying potential safety risks and hazards that could interfere with patients’ safety, they can also find ways to mitigate risks and prevent safety issues before they harm patients.
Moreover, nurse leaders must conduct performance reviews to learn if the staff behavior could affect patient safety. Having a structure whereby patients can report safety issues is also crucial. Finally, nurse leaders must collaborate with hospital stakeholders to address safety system issues and manage safety concerns through the proper channels.
Building trust by acting in the best interests of patients
Trust is essential when creating a sustainable safety culture. Nurse leaders need to act in the best interests of their patient’s safety, demonstrating honesty, integrity, and commitment to ethical conduct. By acting as an example, other healthcare team members will likely follow the set safety protocols and report potential safety issues.
Think and act like a safety professional
Being a nurse leader may sometimes mean thinking and acting like a safety professional. This might include identifying potential safety risks and eliminating them. If elimination isn’t possible, they may have to substitute for something less hazardous or implement administrative control.
Additionally, nurse leaders may have to initiate a workplace safety response team. Having a team in place enforces a safety culture in healthcare and provides perspective on safety-related problems, reinforcing collaboration and teamwork.
Conduct safety rounds with nursing staff
Many nurses may have the misconception that their leaders do not understand the challenges they face. Nurse leaders can change this perception by performing safety rounds with the nursing staff. These rounds discuss potential safety concerns and ways the hospital can enhance patient safety together, with a collaborative approach.
Implement safety protocols
Nurse leaders have a role in implementing safety protocols that consider their patients' and staff's wellbeing and safety. There are different ways they can establish these safety protocols.
First, creating patient identification is essential. Accurate patient identification procedures can help prevent mistakes like nurses administering medication to the wrong patient. This safety protocol will include a two-step proof to make sure nursing professionals and other healthcare providers have the right patient.
Establishing rapid response teams is the next step. Although nurse leaders might have all the safety measures in place to prevent errors, sometimes system errors may occur and lead to incidents regardless. Developing a rapid response team allows nurses and other stakeholders to learn how to respond in case of an unforeseen event.
Establishing this team also fosters communication and teamwork; the staff know they must work together to lead to a better outcome. Furthermore, having handled the drills, nurses and other clinical staff understand how to respond with the help of the rapid response team.
Next, nurse leaders can come up with fall prevention strategies. These can include ensuring the patient's surroundings are free from potential hazards, providing assistive equipment, and regularly monitoring high-risk patients.
Additionally, providing safe medication administration is a must. A nurse leader can establish safe medication administration protocols to do so. This means ensuring that nurses and other healthcare providers have the right patient, the right drug, the correct dosage, the proper administration route, and are administering medication at the right time. Nurse leaders can reduce medication errors and reinforce a safety culture by following this safety protocol.
Equally important is investing in safety equipment. Nurse leaders must provide safety supplies, equipment, and other software to nurses and other healthcare providers to prevent safety hazards. A good example is during the COVID-19 pandemic, when nurses struggled to get Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). Part of creating a safety culture is to ensure safe patient handling for nurses and patients alike.
Finally, nurse leaders should implement strategies to eradicate workplace violence, which is often more prevalent than reported. Unfortunately, this violence has been shown to affect the quality of care provided to patients and studies reveal that it can also affect patient outcomes.
Nurse leaders need to create workplace violence prevention programs in their organization to train and empower nursing professionals. By implementing these programs, nurses can provide better care, leading to better patient outcomes.
Redefining quality improvement and patient safety
Nurse leaders have multiple roles as they are the foundation of quality improvement and patient safety in healthcare settings. Their work revolves around policy development and implementation, educating nursing staff, fostering a quality care culture, resource advocacy, ensuring regulatory compliance, and pioneering interdisciplinary collaboration.
Ultimately, nurse leaders can contribute to better patient outcomes and a safe healthcare environment by ensuring high standards of care and patient safety.
