Leadership, Clinical Judgment, and Patient-Centered Care

Leadership, Clinical Judgment, and Patient-Centered Care

We have many different types of leaders in healthcare. In my various nursing roles, I, too, have acted as a nursing leader.

Perform a web search and find information that allows you to discuss the following topic:***************

Briefly describe the article you chose. What role does leadership play in improving care? How does this relate to nursing as a profession, as well as to an individual nurse? How are nurses prepared to be leaders? How does the nurse utilize clinical judgment in providing patient-centered care? Please provide the title of the document you found and include the URL.

Nowadays, both evidence-based medicine and nursing are widely recognized as the tools for establishing effective healthcare organizations of high productivity and quality of care. Management and leadership of healthcare professionals is critical for strengthening quality and integration of care. Leadership has been defined as the relationship between the individual/s who lead and those who take the choice to follow, while it refers to the behaviour of directing and coordinating the activities of a team or group of people towards a common goal [1,2]. There are many identified styles of leadership, while six types appear to be more common: transformational, transactional, autocratic, laissez-faire, task-oriented, and relationship-oriented leadership. Transformational leadership style is characterized by creating relationships and motivation among staff members. Transformational leaders typically have the ability to inspire confidence, staff respect and they communicate loyalty through a shared vision, resulting in increased productivity, strengthen employee morale, and job satisfaction [3,4]. In transactional leadership the leader acts as a manager of change, making exchanges with employees that lead to an improvement in production [3]. An autocratic leadership style is considered ideal in emergencies situation as the leader makes all decisions without taking into account the opinion of staff. Moreover, mistakes are not tolerated within the blame put on individuals. In contrary, the laissez-faire leadership style involves a leader who does not make decisions, staff acts without direction or supervision but there is a hands-off approach resulting in rare changes [4]. Task-oriented leadership style involves planning of work activities, clarification of roles within a team or a group of people, objectives set as well as the continuing monitoring and performance of processes. Lastly, relationship-oriented leadership style incorporates support, development and recognition [5].

Quality of care is a vital element for achieving high productivity levels within healthcare organizations, and is defined as the degree to which the probability of achieving the expected health outcomes is increased and in line with updated professional knowledge and

skills within health services [6]. The Institute of Medicine OM has described six characteristics of high-quality care that must be: (1) safe, (2) effective, (3) reliable, (4) patient-centred, (5) efficient, and (6) equitable. Measuring health outcomes is a core component of assessing quality of care. Quality measures are: structure, process, outcome, and patient satisfaction [6]. According to the National Quality Measures Clearing House (USA), a clinical outcome refers to the health state of a patient resulting from healthcare. Measures on patient outcomes and satisfaction constitute: shorter patient length of stay, hospital mortality level, health care-associated infections, failure to rescue ratio, restraint use, medication errors, inadequate pain management, pressure ulcers rate, patient fall rate, falls with injury, medical errors, and urinary tract infections [7].

There are numerous publications recognizing leadership style as a key element for quality of healthcare. Effective leadership is among the most critical components that lead an organization to effective and successful outcomes. Significant positive associations between effective styles of leadership and high levels of patient satisfaction and reduction of adverse effects have been reported [8]. Furthermore, several studies have stressed the importance of leadership style for quality of healthcare provision in nursing homes [9]. Transformational leadership is strongly related to the implementation of effective management that establishes a culture of patient safety [10]. In addition, the literature stresses that empowering leadership is related to patient outcomes by promoting greater nursing expertise through increased staff stability, and reduced turnout [11]. Effective leadership has an indirect impact on reducing mortality rates, by inspiring, retaining and supporting experienced staff. Although there are many published studies that indicate the importance of leadership, few of these studies have attempted to correlate a certain leadership style with patient outcomes and healthcare quality indicators.

Important information for writing discussion questions and participation

Welcome to class

Hello class and welcome to the class and I will be your instructor for this course. This is a -week course and requires a lot of time commitment, organization, and a high level of dedication. Please use the class syllabus to guide you through all the assignments required for the course. I have also attached the classroom policies to this announcement to know your expectations for this course. Please review this document carefully and ask me any questions if you do. You could email me at any time or send me a message via the “message” icon in halo if you need to contact me. I check my email regularly, so you should get a response within 24 hours. If you have not heard from me within 24 hours and need to contact me urgently, please send a follow up text to

I strongly encourage that you do not wait until the very last minute to complete your assignments. Your assignments in weeks 4 and 5 require early planning as you would need to present a teaching plan and interview a community health provider. I advise you look at the requirements for these assignments at the beginning of the course and plan accordingly. I have posted the YouTube link that explains all the class assignments in detail. It is required that you watch this 32-minute video as the assignments from week 3 through 5 require that you follow the instructions to the letter to succeed. Failure to complete these assignments according to instructions might lead to a zero. After watching the video, please schedule a one-on-one with me to discuss your topic for your project by the second week of class. Use this link to schedule a 15-minute session. Please, call me at the time of your appointment on my number. Please note that I will NOT call you.

Please, be advised I do NOT accept any assignments by email. If you are having technical issues with uploading an assignment, contact the technical department and inform me of the issue. If you have any issues that would prevent you from getting your assignments to me by the deadline, please inform me to request a possible extension. Note that working fulltime or overtime is no excuse for late assignments. There is a 5%-point deduction for every day your assignment is late. This only applies to approved extensions. Late assignments will not be accepted.

If you think you would be needing accommodations due to any reasons, please contact the appropriate department to request accommodations.

Plagiarism is highly prohibited. Please ensure you are citing your sources correctly using APA 7th edition. All assignments including discussion posts should be formatted in APA with the appropriate spacing, font, margin, and indents. Any papers not well formatted would be returned back to you, hence, I advise you review APA formatting style. I have attached a sample paper in APA format and will also post sample discussion responses in subsequent announcements.

Your initial discussion post should be a minimum of 200 words and response posts should be a minimum of 150 words. Be advised that I grade based on quality and not necessarily the number of words you post. A minimum of TWO references should be used for your initial post. For your response post, you do not need references as personal experiences would count as response posts. If you however cite anything from the literature for your response post, it is required that you cite your reference. You should include a minimum of THREE references for papers in this course. Please note that references should be no more than 5 years old except recommended as a resource for the class. Furthermore, for each discussion board question, you need ONE initial substantive response and TWO substantive responses to either your classmates or your instructor for a total of THREE responses. There are TWO discussion questions each week, hence, you need a total minimum of SIX discussion posts for each week. I usually post a discussion question each week. You could also respond to these as it would count towards your required SIX discussion posts for the week.

I understand this is a lot of information to cover in 5 weeks, however, the Bible says in Philippians 4:13 that we can do all things through Christ that strengthens us. Even in times like this, we are encouraged by God’s word that we have that ability in us to succeed with His strength. I pray that each and every one of you receives strength for this course and life generally as we navigate through this pandemic that is shaking our world today. Relax and enjoy the course!

Hi Class,

Please read through the following information on writing a Discussion question response and participation posts.

Contact me if you have any questions.

Important information on Writing a Discussion Question

• Your response needs to be a minimum of 150 words (not including your list of references)
• There needs to be at least TWO references with ONE being a peer reviewed professional journal article.
• Include in-text citations in your response
• Do not include quotes—instead summarize and paraphrase the information
• Follow APA-7th edition
• Points will be deducted if the above is not followed

Participation –replies to your classmates or instructor

• A minimum of 6 responses per week, on at least 3 days of the week.
• Each response needs at least ONE reference with citations—best if it is a peer reviewed journal article
• Each response needs to be at least 75 words in length (does not include your list of references)
• Responses need to be substantive by bringing information to the discussion or further enhance the discussion. Responses of “I agree” or “great post” does not count for the word count.
• Follow APA 7th edition
• Points will be deducted if the above is not followed

• Remember to use and follow APA-7th edition for all weekly assignments, discussion questions, and participation points.
• Here are some helpful links
• The is a great resource