Management Orientation Program Proposal

Management Orientation Program Proposal

Table of Contents

Many orientation programs for nurse managers have loose structures, which contributes to a failure in providing the nurse managers with the appropriate support and experience that assures them of a hassle free integration and smooth transition. Effective orientation programs for nursing leaders will provide a fundamental force for influencing the nurses to achieve the desired goals and vision. Excellence in nursing leadership has a direct impact to on the quality of care that patients receive. Furthermore, at these times of drastic changes in healthcare systems, nursing management has proven to be a difficult and challenging task. This proposal will examine the man aspects of concern for the establishment of an effective management orientation program for nursing leaders. This program aims at ensuring, that the newly hired nurse managers are integrated in the leadership roles, in the heath care organization, and ensure their retention for the new posts.

Scope of the program

The ever continuing changes, in the health care system, in the United States, as for the case of new competencies, and standards, do present a significant challenge to healthcare leaders, as they orientate the newly coming nurse leaders. This proposal management orientation program will, focus on the introduction of the inclusion of leadership simulation computer videos. This will provide the new nurse managers with an opportunity to examine how different techniques can be used real –life scenarios, through modeling of roles. This new program will provide the nurses managers with detailed information necessary in carrying out their daily tasks.

Justification

Most nursing literature on orientation is concerned with socialization and orientation of the nursing staff. Few studies are available on the suitable programs for orientating nurse managers. Nurse Manager’s orientation forms a critical step in the ability of managers to socialize. This is because; such a program will provide the foundation for the development of a successful relationship between the management and the nursing staff (Benner et al, 2010). The current programs used for orientating nurses have integrated didactic content with interactive computer programs. Such programs mainly focus on the essential skills of management and on the need for developing an understanding of the specific roles of the managers in the context of the goals and vision of the organization (Cathcart, Greenspan, & Quin, 2010).

The use of leadership simulation computer video technology as part of the orientation for the new nurse managers will provide the right skills in leadership development. The learners will at the same time be engaged to the orientation process. On a daily basis, difficult conversations, negotiations and interpersonal communication do occur in the workplaces among patients, departments, the patients’ families, and departments. The introduction of a simulation technology will offer the nurse manager learners and opportunity to learn, engage, and apply their skills in the most suitable real life situations. The nurse mangers through this simulation will have an opportunity for perfecting their communication skills and engaging others in a safe environment.

Other sectors, such as, nursing, medical, and commercial aviation training has successfully used simulation as a means to provide learners with new skills in their respective roles. Simulation is a means through which real-life scenarios are replicated, and such scenarios should reflect the clinical process or situation. This kind of strategy will help the nurse managers experience a comparable aspect with that in the real working environment. The learners will be placed in life –like situations where, they are expected to provide immediate feedback on decisions, actions, and questions made. Through simulation, training variability is reduced and at the same time can be customized to suit the individual needs of the learners. Through simulation, it will be possible to integrate the technical and behavioral aspects of learning. Simulation was initially meant to be used in crisis intervention programs. The health care filed can, however, benefit from the high fidelity simulation especially, on training. The main benefits of simulation are that, the professionals will be able to improve on team communication and in reducing of medical errors. Through training based on simulation, the nurses mangers will be immersed in a realistic and dynamic environment, where technical and behavioral can be learned and reinforced.

Research studies on health care team and emergency management have examined team communication and integration in dealing with highly complex situations. These studies have proved that simulation –based learning is superior in learning problem –related situations. This is because; learners are able to gain management and critical assessment skills (Blum, Raemer, Carroll, Dufresn, Cooper 2005). Simulation learning will, therefore, provide the new nurse managers with an active engagement in their orientation process. Nurse leaders are well knowledgeable with the management of clinical activities in their assigned units. However, most of them lack confidence in managing issues to deal with personnel communication that occur daily in the work environments. The ability of the nurse managers in effectively dealing with personnel management will significantly help in improving the unit morale and staff. Subsequently, there will be staff empowerment, improved the patient’s outcome, and increased patient safety (Cathcart, Greenspan, & Quin, 2010).

Therefore, in the orientation process of the nurse managers, it is critical to prepare them with skills expected in human resource management that focus on the essential managerial skills and activities related to nursing management. This means that the complex leadership challenges such as the need to improve quality, productivity, safety and effective patient care can be solved when nurse leaders have full mastery, skills, and knowledge of management (Cathcart, Greenspan, & Quin, 2010). Leadership skills among the nurse managers are crucial for the nursing staff satisfaction and retention. This is because a list of traits, talents and competencies do not describe when and how a nurse manager is expected to act when faced with a real life clinical situation. The skilled- know-how is always essential because the nurse manager will clearly see the detailed aspect of a give clinical situation so as to gain essential knowledge and respond to the situation effectively (Benner et al, 2010).

Program mission

Most times, the manager’s attention and time are for understanding individual in complex and diverse situations. The mission of this nurse manager’s orientation program will be to provide a safe environment that mentoring and learning will take place. The tool to be used for the orientation process is simulation, which will provide learners with a variety of the clinical situation to gain interpersonal communication skills. This kind of skill will assist the nurse managers effectively communicate with the patients, staff and families of patients. The utilization of simulation will lead to a standardized performance based on a framework that integrates behavioral, technical and cognitive aspects. This tool of learning is expected to provide measureable outcomes and results. Multiple learners are expected to have the same evaluation and experience. Further, the simulation tool is expected to support the development of transformational leaders to engage their teams through mutually set goals and communication. By the end of the orientation program, the nurse managers are expected to apply the best practice standards and knowledge expected in areas of engagement with teams, interpersonal communication and on retention and transfer of information. The application is an effective tool in the orientation process for the nurse managers and the unit leaders.

Attainable objectives

Goal / Competency	Activity/ skill	Resources	Time frame	Skill level	Follow up comments
Gain knowledge on the nurses code of ethics	The code of ethics will be read to the nurse leaders	ANA website
	Holding conferences that involve representatives from the local communities.
Improved leadership style	Write down the qualities and characteristics of effective leaders.
Development of a trusting, and positive relationship with other members of staff	Identify the weaknesses and strengths in strategy development and communication Identify the right, techniques that will promote the positive development of relationship and communication among the staff Be part of a team building training	Conduct self evaluation tests and results reflection Grohar-Murray & Langan, 2011, pp. 43-44). Master the ten basic aspects of good communication Grohar-Murray & Langan, 2011, pp. 43-44).
Motivation and retaining of employees.	Train managers on effective communication and leadership style.	lead to strengthening of the program’s ability to provide the intense aspects that have to be understood in modern day health care environment that is highly complex This understanding will lead to a better understanding of the way of increasing the patient’s safety and employee satisfaction within a long –term duration		The aim of this program will be to ensure that the nurse managers have the right communication and interpersonal skills that will help them solve the challenges that the unit members face. This leads to increasing the nurse’s morale and commitment to be part of the health care organization. In the long- run, the rate of turnover in the organization will be reduced considerably (Ragsadale & Muelller, 2005, p 268-272).
Improving the skills of the experienced nurse leaders and managers
Motivation and retaining of employees	Effective training on communication and leadership skills			The simulated scenarios reflecting the challenging conversations associated with the patient’s family and personnel issues happening daily. The nurse leaders will evaluate such scenarios and decide on the critical aspects to be examined in the program.

Sustainability and evaluation

The advisors group will expect that the nurse managers use a modular approach in representation of the orientations information. The nurse managers will use a self-learning module with a package or self- contained unit with the right study materials. The features of this format are adaptable to be moved to other electronic platform in online studies. This, therefore, ensures the ability to use this learning toolkit for future plan. The nurse leaders will be expected to presents the units with ideas of improvement during the orientation practices. The critical elements to be considered in the program are as follows: The online leaning will be made simple so as to reduce the challenge of online learning. The content will be made appealing through ensuring that it is of relevance to the nurses leaders back ground. The learning will take place for a long period, and the need to respect the new nurse managers in the organization. Lastly, the learning should place first priority to critical issues that impacts on the newly hired nurse managers.

Each learning module will have a common theme and format. The module will also focus on an adult-learning perspective that will integrate scenarios and case studies. Other aspects to be included include personal reflection, role playing and involving advanced organizers. Strategies that address the diverse styles of learning will be included. The learners will be provided with a list of resources that are available online. The program developers will be urged to assess university links to find materials that reflect on clinical issues. Through this analysis’s, they will be able to understand the current nursing leadership curricular and determine any given gap that need to be addressed to the new nurses managers in their training to leadership positions. Some of the topic that the program developers will examine include, improving on communication skills, development of relationships and partnerships, and the role of a nursing manager and most importantly on the foundation of practice. These practices include the CCHN Standards, core competencies health legislation and professional standards among others.

The initial evaluation of the program will involve the reviewing of the learning modules. This will involve two main processes for improving and evaluation of the learning toolkit. The first approach will be to review the product of the modules and feedback will be given. The final revisions will be done based on the feedback provided by the newly hired nurse managers. The program developers will survey the feedback provided by the learners so that they determine whether or not the goals and objective of the program was attained. The second form of evaluation will be based on group interviews. The program developers will interview the nurse’s managers so as to find out their experience in the orientation process. This process of evaluation will, therefore, involve an exploration of key issues that impact on partnership development, knowledge transfer, and the project successes or challenges.

Summary

This proposal has examined the key aspects that an effective nurse orientations plan will involve. The central aspect for this plan is to consider the needs of nurse managers in terms of their ability to communicate and establish partnership and relations with their unit. Based on the review of literature materials, it is evident that a lot of aspects need to be considered when orientating the nurse leaders and managers. This will help them effectively deal with the highly changing and complex health care environment of today. These of simulation toolkit is one approach that will prepare the nurse leaders gain the skills and knowledge in dealing with the real clinical situations in their daily practices.

Reference

Benner P, Sutphen M, Leonard V & Day L (2010) Educating Nurses A Call for Radical Transformation. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA.

Sellren S, Ekvall, G & Tomson, G (2006) leadership styles in nursing management. The preferred and perceived. Journal of nursing management, Vol 14, p 348-355.

Cathcart, E Greenspan, M, & Quin, M (2010) the making of a nurse manager. Journal of Nursing Management, 18(4), 440-447.

Dellasega, C, Gabbary, R, Durdock, K., & Martinez-King, N (2009) an exploratory study of the orientation needs of experienced nurses. Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing, 40(7), 311-316.

Ragsdale, M, & Mueller, J (2005) Plan, do, study, act model to improve. Journal of Nursing Care Quality, 20(3), 268-272.

Blum H, Raemer D, Carroll J, Dufresn L, Cooper B (2005) A method for measuring the effectiveness of simulation-based team training for improving communications skills. 100:1375-1380.

Grohar-Murray, M. E., & Langan, J. (2011). Leadership and management in nursing (4th edition). Boston: Pearson

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