Education Program on Leadership Development in Nursing

Question: Discuss about education program on leadership development in nursing? Answer: The nursing profession is entirely focused on the provision of care and support to the people need to improve their health status. The efficiency and effectiveness of the nursing profession are dependent on some factors including the application of critical thinking and problem solving skills and nursing leadership. The nursing leadership is focused on the development of efficient and potential nursing skills with nursing competency development. The development of nursing leadership can be facilitated by involving nursing students in nursing education programs aiming leadership development and nurturing appropriate leadership skills and competencies. Mentors and nurse educators have a major role in guiding and directing future nurses to develop skills and competencies required to be a potential nursing leader in the professional field (Feldman, Jaffe-Ruiz McClure, 2008). The nursing leadership development and related educational programs help the nurses to understand the way they sh ould process their nursing practices to bring changes in their commitment to the nursing profession and the development of the nursing profession. The development of nursing leadership can be facilitated by the help of nurse educators or mentors, who help to create, direct the achievement and application of nursing students leadership skills in provided health care framework (Jasper, 2011). This assignment would focus on the evidence-based data collection and discussion of educational programs based on nursing leadership. Data collected from different articles regarding the nursing leadership and education related to nursing leadership development. The article provided by Curtis, Sheerin and de Vries (2011) highlights the requirement of the training and education in the development of nursing leadership through different educational programs. In this article, authors showed that previous researches have been demonstrated that the effective teaching and integration of leadership in the nursing practice imposes positive effect upon the development of leadership skills and practices. Through the literature review and primary research, the authors showed that the health care organizations and universities should support the continuous involvement of practical and theoretical training related to leadership development while maintaining and facilitating leadership development in the professional practice of nursing at the same time. In this study the author showed that in a study for determining perception of competencies and educational requirements of nurse managers and executives, 35 nurse managers and 93 nurse executives were sur veyed and the finding revealed that both groups recognized management and human resource and the staffing and scheduling are the important competencies for them. However, a significant percentage identified strategic planning and finance management. In a pilot study highlighted in this paper included evaluation of a leadership program to improve leadership development in staffs and patient care. The program included 22 clinical nurse, they were surveyed over 12 months. The data reported positive impact of work-based strategies used in the program upon the experience and changed patient care. According to Bleich (2015), the nurse educators should have the responsibility to develop appropriate leadership development educational programs for guiding nursing students in developing effective programs. This article highlighted the importance of the effective educational framework for guiding and supporting nursing students in achieving appropriate leadership skills through their educational programs. MacPhee, Skelton-Green, Bouthillette, and Suryaprakash (2012) highlighted the supporting evidence of empowerment framework for the development of nursing leadership. Authors aimed to study the perspectives of nurse leaders regarding the outcomes of formal leadership programs. The authors interviewed nurse leaders with sufficient experience of participating in the formal leadership development programs and analyzed with the qualitative analysis for understanding the empowerment strategies and their effect on achieving better nursing leadership outcomes. In this study, 27 front-line and mid-level nurse leaders were interviewed. The data were collected in 2008-2009 from 4 programme cohorts. Here 4 independently developed code categories and themes were used for qualitative content analysis. All interviewed showed similar advantages from attending NLI. The results showed the effective leadership strategies including empowerment-based programs helped in building confidence, building aware ness of the roles and responsibilities, the perception of staff recognition, etc. Therefore, this article showed the theoretical empowerment framework is efficient for empowering nurse leaders in the improvement of their nursing skills. From the view point of Benjamin, Riskus and Skalla (2011), the establishment of the potential candidates for developing nursing leaders is one important strategy for addressing the current nursing shortage. The authors highlighted the succession planning, which would be able to fill the leadership positions with qualified candidates. The authors highlighted the recognition of the importance of efficient succession planning ensuring the transition to fill the nursing leadership position when needed. The paper included a basic curriculum, which was based on the Magnet Model for future nursing leaders. Therefore, this paper highlighted the educational curriculum and requirements for engaging future nurses in effective leadership educational programs important for their nursing curriculum. Morrow (2015) reviewed literature related to the leadership curricula in nursing education critically along with the gap analysis in the curricula. The author discussed that the nursing education should integrate and involve the nursing leadership contents covering all the areas of prelicensure nursing curricula. The author used the thematic analysis of the critically identified literature and identified gaps in that literature. In this paper, for the literature review, the author included 13 peer-reviewed articles, after analyzing their acceptance according to the inclusion criteria of the paper. Within these 13 articles, 8 were descriptive articles, 2 were mixed-methods studies, 2 were quantitative studies and 1 article was qualitative study. The inclusion of studies with different methods of data analysis helped the author to analyze the research topis with different themes and gather knowledge from different dimensions. The articles were searched by CINAHL database. The themes di scussed in the article highlighted the need for active learning strategies, within which the subthemes were the need for peer learning, reflective practice, organizational partnership, interdisciplinary teams and curricular reforms. However, potential conflicts including financial constrains were identified as the blockage of undertaking active learning strategies. According to Butler Hardin-Pierce (2005), a new graduate nurses faces some problems in the new environment of the professional field, which sometimes make the nurse frustrated and impacts negatively on the professional career of the nurse. Therefore, there is a need for implementation of the educational process for the elimination of the lag phase need to adjust in the unknown environment. Therefore, the educational curriculum for developing nursing leadership should involve the basic level of education to adjust to the professional career and to prepare the future nurses for meeting the present and future needs of the nursing students, thereby eliminating or shortening the lag phase in nursing and leadership development. According to Nguyen, Zierler and Nguyen (2011), the training involving the new technologies for education and practice is necessary to be promoted by the nursing faculties. In this context, the authors used web-based surveys to the nursing faculties about the need for involving new technologies in the education and practice and the results showed that half of the faculties are using the distance learning and informatics tools. In this paper, the researchers conducted a web-based survey for 193 faculty members of a nursing school in the Western United States. The results revealed that informatics tools and other technologies are supporting distance learning. 66% faculty reported their competence with the distance learning and informatics tools and others highlighted the need for training and technical supports for distance learning programs. 69% faculty reported requirement for additional training. This article highlighted the need for involvement of four emerging educational technolo gies; distance learning, telehealth, simulation and informatics and computer fundamentals. In the article provided by Parrish and Crookes (2014), the educational evaluation study was prepared for identifying the chief principles informing the implementation and design of nursing reflection programs for enhancing the potential of nursing students to involve reflective nursing practice. The nursing graduates were eligible for this program, 321 students enrolled in the subject but 76%, 244 students completed the evaluation of questionnaire, including quantitative and qualitative response. 184 (75%) completed qualitative response and analyzed as the part of the study. These semi-structured interviews of the nursing graduates showed the identification of three principles, which include adequate preparation with a great knowledge and confidence of the nursing educators, involvement of reflection curricula with logical structure in the nursing educational curricula and the effective assessment tool to assess the key concepts of nursing. These principles would help to account the required reflection of the improvement needed by the educators. Sandstrom, Borglin, Nilsson and Willman (2011) reviewed literatures based on the promotion of the implementation of evidence-based practice in the nursing leadership roles. The objectives of this paper were to conduct a systematic review of the literature about leadership and the facilitation of the implementation process of EBP. The electronic database was used for searching articles for the literature review, here CINAHL and MedLine were used for identifying articles, through these databases 46 articles were identified to meet the inclusion criteria, but after analysis 36 were excluded after performing appraisal by 2 independent reviewers. The literature review revealed three key areas; characteristics of the organization, characterization of the culture and the characterization of leaders. The literature review suggested that leadership should involve EBP for along with the consideration of the organizational and cultural factors within which the leader is working. In the article provided by Lucas (2012), the author discussed about various sampling methods and the application of those sampling methods which can be used in assessing the leadership development and emerging gaps. The author identified that with the help of these sampling methods, different gaps in leadership strategies and educational curriculum can be identified via a thorough data analysis which are obtained from the data gathered by interviewing nursing students, nurses and community where they serve. According to the viewpoint of Wong, Cummings and Ducharme (2013), there is a strong and significant relationship between the nursing leadership based trends and practice and the patient's outcomes. This article provides an update of systematic review on this topic. The literature search found 20 studies, which fit according to the inclusion criterion and the result found relation within the higher patient satisfaction, lower patient mortality, lowered medication errors, hospital-acquired infection, restrain use and the positive relational leadership styles of the leaders. Within these 20 articles, 17 (85%) were identified as strong, 3 (15%) were identified as moderate. 19 studies included reliable and valid measures and15 were multi-sited studies and 17 had an acceptable sample sizes. Within these, 5 studies included random sampling. In 9 (45%) studies, explicit leadership theory was used. In summary, it can be said that, the theoretical frameworks are necessary for the development of nursing leadership as well as empowering nurses. Therefore, the educational programs should involve strategies with structural empowerment. It has also been revealed that, the succession planning is a suitable approach for making nurses efficient leaders for filling leadership positions during requirements. It has also been revealed that, the patients outcomes and the positive nursing leadership aspects have a significant relationship. However, in this context, the organizational and cultural aspects are important concerns. The leadership program can be facilitated with appropriate environment, use of effective strategies, and involvement of teaching strategies. The evidence-based practice should be involved in the nursing leadership development curriculum, thereby ensuring safe and secure patients outcomes from nursing practices. The curriculum should include effective decision making wi th critical thinking and problem solving skills development, financial attributes, team building and management of professionals in the healthcare sectors through motivation. The data and information gathered from the above discussed articles were sufficient to understand the requirements for nursing competencies and leadership development programs. The nursing educational programs should be developed with appropriate structure to support the graduate nurses for developing their nursing capabilities from all aspects. The aim of the nursing leadership development program should be to provide opportunity to the nurses to acquire and refine the nursing skills needed for delivering a standard nursing practice in an appropriate and structured organizational environment. Therefore, the knowledge acquired from the raw data should be analyzed and used as the resources in developing the next steps of the future nursing educational curriculum (Doody Doody, 2012). After analyzing these data, the analysis should be discussed with the mentor for developing the further steps in the nursing leadership development educational curriculum. These data would help to guide o r direct the next step in the nursing leadership development curriculum. After collecting the data from the above articles and discussing with the mentor about the next step in the nursing leadership development program, there would be the need for building a curriculum for all the aspect of nursing. The nursing leadership development framework should be applicable to all aspect of the health care frameworks. Therefore, after building the leadership development curriculum, it should ensure that the curriculum has focused on each level of leadership development. After developing the curriculum, the next step would be teaching according to the focused areas of the curriculum. The teaching should involve all the highlighted areas in the articles discussed above, since the basic adjustment skills of a new graduate nurse in a professional nurse to the advanced skills development with the informatics and other technologies and involvement of evidence-based practice in nursing activities. In the curriculum, the levels should be set according to the designation o f the leaders in the health care organizations structures (Swearingen, 2009). Teaching should involve finance techniques, advanced staff development skills, management of change, addressing issues affecting systems of the health care systems etc. The next step in the educational program should be the evaluation step. In this step, the educational process should be evaluated according to the established learning outcomes of the educational program. This step would provide the understanding about the impact of students education for improving learning of leaders. The positive outcomes could be predicted as satisfaction of nursing leaders, extended retention along with the attainment of strategic goals, thereby ensuring the effectiveness of the educational program. After evaluating the educational process, the final step should involve reflective practice and ensuring positive feedbacks and success of the educational program (Laschinger, Wong Grau, 2013). In conclusion, it can be depicted that, the leadership development program is an effective practice for improving the nursing practice in the organizational framework. This assignment discussed different approaches and aspects of leadership development, which are essential resources for a leadership development educational program. In this context, eleven articles were reviewed in this assignment for gathering raw data regarding leadership development. After gathering sufficient knowledge in this area, the next step in the curriculum program was discussed. The next step was the development of curriculum planning and then setting teaching priorities according to the focused areas in the curriculum. Then the evaluation of the educational program should be done to ensure the success of the nursing leadership development program. Reference List Swearingen, S. (2009). A Journey to Leadership: Designing a Nursing Leadership Development Program.J Contin Educ Nurs,40(3), 107-112. https://dx.doi.org/10.3928/00220124-20090301-02 Bleich, M. R. (2015). Leadership needs assessment. The Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing, 46(1), 10-11. doi:https://dx.doi.org/10.3928/00220124-20150109-13 Butler, K. M., Hardin-Pierce, M. (2005). Leadership strategies to enhance the transition from nursing student role to professional nurse. Nursing Leadership Forum, 9(3), 110-7. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/207446559?accountid=458 Curtis, E. A., Sheerin, F. K., de Vries, J. (2011). 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