Question

Details:

Scenario You are working as a new graduate nurse/ new graduate midwife in your chosen area of the hospital. You are finding the work a little challenging but feel supported by a positive culture and an engaged mentor. Your ward values ongoing education. There is an in-service roster that requires each nurse/ midwife to give a presentation and your turn is in one month. Your topic is the relationship between leadership style and patient safety. As part of your preparation for this presentation you do some research through the hospital library and you are able to call on some of the content covered in the third year of your degree. Write an essay that discusses the relationship between leadership styles and patient safety.

The essay needs to include: A definition of the terms ’leadership’ and ’patient safety’ and an examination of the relationship between the two.

A concise description of at least two leadership styles A critical analysis of two ( or more) leadership styles and how such styles may or may not promote patient safety. Use one specific patient safety issue (for example medication safety, falls, recognition of the deteriorating patient or prevention of deep venous thrombosis) as an example to illustrate your discussion.

Need 700 words. No plagiarism please.

Answer 1

There is no doubt organisations must have leaders to achieve share goals. In health care settings, leadership is essential and significant to promote patient safety. An effective leadership will inspire and motivate nurses to create the right culture in clinical setting. Not only will effective leadership reduce preventable harms and errors but also it accelerates the speed of achieving a satisfying health environment for both patients and health care workers. This essay will highlight the importance of effective leadership in clinical setting by starting with a clear definition of patient safety and patient safety culture, then it will explain the relationship in between patient safety and leadership. This essay will also introduce three leadership styles of authoritarian, democratic, and laissez-faire, followed by comparing their essential characteristics. Furthermore, a critical analyses will be demonstrated on how different leadership styles can help promote patient safety and reduce medication error in the inpatient hospital setting.

Leadership is the vital aspect in a successful patient safety program. Only leaders can effectively guide efforts in their health care organizations to promote the practice and dedication necessary to address the essential medical practice errors and harm to patients. A leader’s role is to bring out efficient practice from subordinates. This incorporates leading and influencing the establishment of principles, idea and prospect to improve goal of patient safety. The exclusive function of leadership is to implement the value system, plan strategic goals, support efforts, make available resources, eliminate obstacles and follow established and acceptable practices. In this essay, implementation of leadership in patient safety in discussed (Carroll, 2005).

Patient safety is an aspect of health management practice that implements safety science methods in the direction of attaining goal of reliable method of health care delivery. Patient safety also incorporates actions towards minimizing the impact of undesirable conditions and recovery from these conditions. Patient safety is central goal of the health care organization and leadership plays a significant role in the in achieving this goal. Leadership can enhance or maintain patient safety through both the ways, by giving practical training to the subordinates about the healthcare practice and through enhancing the interest and knowledge of the subordinates about the patient safety. Leader in the healthcare system has a prominent role in patient safety because healthcare system functions based on the integrated service of different stakeholders like nurse, ward boy and pharmacist. Each and every stakeholder has important contribution in the patient safety and good leadership can facilitate coordinated functioning of the unit to achieve goal of patient safety. In healthcare services each patient needs to be handled differently based on the severity of the disease, social, cultural and economic background of the patient. Hence, there are the different structures of practices and methods for each patient both in terms of medical and psychological wellbeing of the patient. Leader plays fundamental role in deciding these practices through experience and evidences available (Scully, 2015). Communication with the patient and family members of the patient is very important in healthcare. This is required for convincing patient and family members about the medical practice to be implemented and to boost their moral (Negussie and Demissie, 2013). Only leader can perform this function because patient and family members can have more faith on leader as compared the other stakeholders. Leader is the backbone of the healthcare system and can handle patient safety very effectively in all types of situations.

Fundamental Patient Safety Theories

A culture of safety must be built on the knowledge of safety principles and safety concepts. Basic safety principles include: “Risk of failure is inherent in complex systems, risk is always emerging, not all risk is foreseeable, people and systems are fallible, and clinicians can create safety every day by recognizing and compensating for risks in the work place” (Morath and Turnbull, 2005). In addition, dispelling health care myths is just as important as knowing the principles of safety. These myths as stated by Morath and Turnbull are: “clinicians are supposed to be infallible, bad things happen only when people make mistakes, people who fail are bad, and blame and punishment sufficiently motivate people to be more careful thereby avoiding future mistakes”. To create a culture of patient safety, leaders must rethink their beliefs and realize that risk is always present and constantly emerging. Rijpma (1997) notes that the following safety paradigms: Normal Accident theory and High Reliability Organization theory can provide valuable insights in understanding the nature of error causation and prevention.

Charles Perrow, the author of Normal Accident Theory, explains that accidents are inevitable because of system complexity. According to the theory, systems with ‘interactive complexity’ and ‘tight coupling’ will experience accidents that are inevitable and therefore in a sense ‘normal’. Marais, Dulac, and Leveson (2004) refers to Interactive complexity as the presence of unfamiliar or unplanned and unexpected sequences of events in a system that are either not visible or not immediately understandable; and a tightly coupled system is one that is highly interdependent. Each part of the system is closely linked to many other parts and therefore a change in one part can quickly affect the status of other parts. Basically, the more tightly coupled the work processes, the greater the possibility of an accident (Perrow, 1999).

Developing Effective Safety Leadership

Leadership is key to creating a patient safety culture, and effective leadership is an indispensable prerequisite to sustaining it. Leaders, through their language and action can change and transform culture by influencing the way others see reality (Carillo, 2010). Without the commitment of leadership – board of directors, senior leaders, physician and nursing leadership – and the “restlessness about the status quo” (a concept introduced by Schein, 1992), performance improvement and enhanced safety within the organization cannot be maintained. In short, an enduring safety culture is highly unlikely. Ginsburg, Chuang, Berta and others (2010) highlighted that both formal and informal leadership is considered necessary to forming and sustaining an organizational safety culture. All the same, leadership is critical when it comes to organizational improvement and not just safety aspects. Rupp, Bonacum, Frush and others noted seven leadership steps that have to be performed to attain patient safety (The Essential Guide for Patient Safety Officers, 2009):

Step One: Assess the culture for safety and act to close the gaps.

Step Two: Understand the science of improvement and reliability. Strive to be a high reliability organization.

Step Three: Foster transparency.

Step Four: Create a leadership promise.

Step Five: Engage physicians and nurses, especially those in executive and formal leadership roles.

Step Six: Hire for what you aspire to become.

Step Seven: Involve board members in the safety journey.

Furthermore, the role of leadership in relation to creating and maintaining a patient safety culture is to set up the value system in the organization; establish strategic objectives for specific activities to be carried out; line up efforts in the organization to accomplish those objectives; provide resources for the design, expansion, and sustainability of efficient systems; eliminate barriers to improvements for health care staff; and insist on compliance to well-known practices that will support patient safety.

Communication seems like an easy concept to utilize in a healthcare facility. However, you and your staff may not properly communicate with other senior members or other authoritative employees due to fear of reprimands or feeling inferior.

Opening the lines of communication takes practice and will increase the overall well being of your facility. Being an efficient advocate for your patients depends on the ability to participate effectively in difficult and critical discussions.

"Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High", a book written by Kerry Patterson talks about "a crucial conversation, as opposed to a casual exchange, a discussion between two or more people about tough issues where opinions vary, stakes are high, and emotions run strong."

Learning to understand the types of conversations you encounter as a healthcare facility manager can strengthen your relationships and revitalize your organization.

In a Harvard Business Review article, Andrew Winston reiterates how employees must feel safe and empowered to speak up.

You might've been in a similar position.

He makes the case that leaders need to often "assess whether their cultures allow their own employees the power and safety to stand in front of the train of fast-moving stupidity and say, "You shall not pass!" And they need to have executives who will listen to them."

Once people become afraid to speak up, they'll justify their silence.

You can overcome this challenges by following

How can you overcome this challenge?...

1)By implementing a better safety culture.

2)Building Your Safety Culture: A Job for Leaders

3)Go Transparent With Quality Data to Avoid Future Mishaps

4)Key Staffing Will Eliminate Poorly Managed Work Environment

5)Continuing Education and Awareness Will Decrease Incidents

6)Strive to Achieve "Patient Safety Excellence Award"

7)Enhance Your Work Performance with Technology