Evaluate leadership and management attributes that support critical decisions for nursing practice.
Scenario
You have recently started a position as a department director with five managers reporting to you. Earlier today, one of your managers reports that a client expired on her unit. She suspects that a factor that may have contributed to the client’s demise may be related to the actions of a nurse on her unit. This nurse has several notes in her personnel file that reflect potential client abuse. You and the nurse manager both have concerns that this sentinel event must be investigated.
Later in the day, the Chief Nursing Officer asks you to speak to new nurse managers to share attributes of leadership with the plan of enhancing their leadership skills. You see an opportunity to combine the situation of the client with a bad outcome, due to the alleged influence of one of the nurses, while building information to share this real-life situation with new nurse leaders.
Instructions
As a follow up to the investigation of the client’s unexpected death, generate an internal memo to your managers to reflect leadership and management attributes and include steps taken to investigate this unfortunate situation. As you create this memo, keep in mind that you should include:
- At least five leadership and/or management attributes for nurse leaders, as well as how they can improve client outcomes.
- Steps you would take to ensure the collection of data regarding this incident.
- Describe how transformational leadership style may influence the process of investigating this professional nurse colleague that reports to one of your unit managers.
- Provides stated ideas with professional language and attribution for credible sources with correct APA citation, spelling, and grammar.
Memo: Leadership and Management Attributes for Investigating Sentinel Events
To: Department Managers From: Department Director Date: [Insert Date]
Subject: Leadership and Management Attributes for Investigating Sentinel Events
I would like to discuss the recent sentinel event that occurred on one of our units. The client expired, and we have reason to believe that one of our nurses may have contributed to the outcome. As nurse leaders, it is our responsibility to investigate these types of incidents thoroughly to ensure that we are providing the highest quality of care to our clients.
In light of this situation, I would like to discuss some leadership and management attributes that can help us to investigate and prevent similar events in the future. Here are five key attributes:
- Effective Communication: Communication is critical in these types of situations. As nurse leaders, we need to be able to communicate effectively with our staff, other healthcare professionals, and clients to gather all necessary information and provide timely updates.
- Critical Thinking: We need to be able to analyze the situation, identify potential contributing factors, and determine the best course of action to prevent future occurrences.
- Accountability: We need to hold ourselves and our staff accountable for providing safe, quality care to our clients.
- Collaboration: We need to work together as a team to investigate the event, identify areas for improvement, and implement changes to prevent future occurrences.
- Continuous Improvement: We need to continuously evaluate our processes and systems to identify areas for improvement and implement changes to provide the best possible care to our clients.
In investigating this sentinel event, we will take the following steps:
- Collect Data: We will gather all necessary data, including client charts, incident reports, witness statements, and staff notes, to fully understand the situation.
- Analyze Data: We will analyze the data to identify contributing factors and determine the best course of action to prevent future occurrences.
- Identify Improvement Opportunities: We will identify areas for improvement in our processes, systems, and staff education and implement changes to prevent future sentinel events.
- Communicate Findings: We will communicate our findings to our staff, other healthcare professionals, and clients to ensure transparency and prevent similar occurrences.
In investigating this professional nurse colleague, transformational leadership style may be useful in the following ways:
- Inspiring a shared vision: We need to communicate our vision for providing safe, quality care to our clients and inspire our staff to work towards this shared goal.
- Providing support and guidance: We need to provide our staff with the support and guidance they need to investigate the situation thoroughly and implement changes to prevent future occurrences.
- Encouraging innovation: We need to encourage our staff to think outside the box and come up with innovative solutions to prevent similar events in the future.
In conclusion, investigating sentinel events is a critical responsibility of nurse leaders. By embodying effective communication, critical thinking, accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement, we can investigate these events thoroughly and prevent similar occurrences in the future. Thank you for your attention to this important matter.
Sincerely,
[Your Name]