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Clear Vision and Strategic Focus - Brooke Gurnicz

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Clear Vision and Strategic Focus - Brooke Gurnicz

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Clear vision and strategic focus are important when being in a leadership role because they help identify essential development of what must be done in an environment. When a vision is clear and as a leader, one can verbalize focus on an issue, it helps engage the receptiveness of their co-workers. Having the ability of clear vision provides decision-making and delegation that will lead to the best outcomes for the population being focused on, as well as the greatest needs to achieve goals set forth. I would use this leadership characteristic to create health promotions in my setting of emergency medicine by focusing on the emergent necessities that will maintain an acute situation of a patient. For example, my strategic focus is always on the airway, breathing, and circulation. If these three are without normal limits, I am going to utilize critical thinking with a clear vision mind to benefit the outcome of the patient.

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A nursing characteristic that is important for nurses to demonstrate is policy development. This is due to how only nurses are able to provide a certain type of input on choices that are currently being voted on (hospital or legal level), and those new regulations will be passed with or without you essentially, and nurses should be involved in those discussions. Additionally, goal setting is very important and nurses often know best what falls short and what is working well in their work place and you should actively take part in setting and working towards these goals to better support patient outcomes. In my own practice setting this could be used by reviewing what issues my unit is currently facing (delayed response and treatment for example), and reviewing what possible solutions there could be (a designed time to answer before this is escalated), and bringing this to management.

Isabel Zayas

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Advocacy and Collaboration - Meshyl Bonjoc 

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Advocacy and Collaboration - Meshyl Bonjoc 

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A study conducted by Jivraj Shariff highlighted vital characteristics of nursing leadership and considered policy development as the primary function of population-focused nursing (NUR352, 2024). Nursing leadership characteristics that are essential for population-focused nurses to demonstrate are advocacy (formal) and collaboration (informal). Community health nurses assess the community and identify its needs, and advocacy helps empower them to decide how to best address those needs. For instance, a community health nurse may recognize patterns to limited access to care, especially in underserved populations. Consequently, advocacy raises awareness to these issues and allows community health nurses to coordinate efforts to provide resources to the selected aggregate. The nurse I collaborated with mentioned community health fairs that provide free medical exams, screenings, immunizations and many more services. This is something that I would like to explore as a form of health promotion in my own work setting. Since high blood pressure and medication noncompliance is commonly seen at work, a community fair would not only promote accessibility to healthcare and services, but also provide the resources and education to empower the community to take initiative for their own health and wellbeing, especially the underserved population.

Collaboration is not only vital in population-focused nursing, but nursing in general. This characteristic encompasses clear and effective communication and allows community health nurses to work efficiently together and with community partners, such as stakeholders, local health professionals and other community leaders. An integration of different perspectives creates a holistic approach to addressing the health needs of a community. This method fosters trust within the community and a goal-driven team to promote the best outcomes. In my own workplace, I naturally collaborate with fellow nurses, physical and occupational therapists, speech therapists, respiratory therapists, hospitalists, and many more in an inpatient setting. In population-focused nursing, I would collaborate with community nurse leaders and become involved in creating policies or nursing practice guidelines to address common health concerns such as insulin teaching at discharge.

NUR 352. (2024). 1.2  Nursing Leadership and the Core Function of Policy Development- What is Most Important for Population Focused Nurses? [Text]. https://uic.blackboard.com/ultra/courses/_265802_1/cl/outline

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Nursing leaders are those whose actions define, inspire, and influence their team to be the best they can be, and they use critical thinking skills to manage their team (American Nurses Association, 2024). Nurse leaders review their daily tasks and goals set for each day, they communicate with everyone to be on the same page and assist the patient. Leaders build relationships with their staff, collaborate with other health professionals, and use thinking skills allowing nursing leadership roles to make decisions and impact the organization they work for (American Nurses Association, 2024). Formal leaders lead by example, they have the power to make rules, implement the as well. These leaders have a title, and they often have more options to make their ideas work out. Informal leaders are those who don’t have a management tittle. For instance, I can be an informal leader, and build relationship with people, make sure I do my job right and help all who needs the assistance, but sometimes tings like that never end.

A study conducted by Jivraj Shariff reflects essential nursing leadership characteristics of population-focused nurses (NURS 352. 2023a). He believed the primary core function of population-focused nurses is policy development, it determines the skills and characteristics needed for leadership (NURS 352. 2023a). Implementing population-focused nursing is nursing participating in what is going to be effective in such health conditions. For instance, people with COPD, what works and what needs to get done to help the patient. Being able to set goals and achieve the goals that will prevent illness or improve any illness already present (NURS 352. 2023a). These are the ways nursing gets involved in population-focused nursing.

References

American Nurses Association. (2024, February 2). Leadership in Nursing: Qualities & Why It Matters. ANA. https://www.nursingworld.org/content-hub/resources/nursing-leadership/leadership-in-nursing/

NURS 352. 2023a. 1.2 Nursing Leadership and the Core Function of Policy Development- What is Most Important for Population Focused Nurses? [Text]

Griselda Alonso

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Empathy and Strategic Planning - Penny Reynolds

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Empathy and Strategic Planning - Penny Reynolds

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One significant characteristic of informal nursing leadership is empathy, which is the capacity to comprehend and resonate with the emotions of others. This quality is essential for nurses who specialize in population health because it helps them build a rapport with patients, understand their desires, fears, and provide care that is specific to their individual circumstances. In a practical setting, empathy can be used to create health promotion interventions by recognizing the distinct health issues that the population face as a whole, create interventions that are mindful of these issues, and present these interventions in a therapeutic manner. For example, if the community as a whole is low-income and has a high obesity rate, an empathetic nurse could design a health promotion campaign that includes free exercise classes and reasonably priced, wholesome food plans.

I've come to realize that strategic planning is not just a formal leadership characteristic, but a personal tool that could empower me to make a real difference in my community. It's about setting goals, determining the actions needed to achieve them, and mobilizing the resources to make it happen. It all starts with understanding the health needs of the community I would be serving. Once I've identified these needs, I set goals to improve their health. Then, I develop a plan of action and gather the resources needed to bring it to fruition. For instance, if I worked in a community plagued by high smoking rates, I would use my strategic planning skills, and set a goal to reduce these rates by 20% within a year. I would then facilitate a plan to include smoking cessation classes, nicotine replacement therapy, and community education campaigns.

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An essential characteristic for community health nurses (CHN) is versatility. The ability to be versatile allows the nurse to adapt to anything that impedes, sets, back, or changes in their field. With the nurses community constantly evolving and changing in time the needs of their population will inevitably change with the economy, communicable diseases, industrialization, and so many more factors impacting them. Changes in economy or incomes can affect the ability to pay for medications, pay for health insurance, pay for doctor visits, buy healthy foods, which can have a major cascading impact on their lives and health.

In my practice, we see a lot of type one diabetics come into the ICU in a state of diabetic ketoacidosis DKA. While not all fall into this category, a lot of them attribute their hospitalization the fact that they were trying to make their insulin last longer, they couldn't afford to buy new supplies for insulin pumps or insulin injections, they couldn't afford test strips for glucose monitoring levels. To be able to be versatile with this population I would attempt to intervene with resources like med to bed programs that provide a 30 day supply of their needs, create or find resources for monthly pop ups with supplies that are often reported being in need, possible starting an outreach program that contacts a list of at risk patients monthly to check in on them to assess any needs they may have prior to them ending up in DKA.

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A population-focused nursing characteristic is critical thinking. Being able to critically think is crucial for a nurse because it develops the population-focused nurse to make decisions based on a complex array of factors. Being able to critically think is a nurse's way to problem-solving regarding patient care and decision-making. Critical thinking is essential because it promotes safe, efficient, and skillful nursing interventions. Critical thinking is being able to assess previous information and new information and make decisions with the resources that are provided to us.

As an ED nurse, being able to think critically is vital, because you see every type of patient with each patient endorsing different symptoms. I have to be able to look at a patient, their vital signs, and what the patient is experiencing and provide the care that best fits their needs, but at a very fast rate can a patient's health deplete, and this is another reason why critical thinking is vital. Critical thinking allows me to handle various situations, and face constant changes, and constant stress, while still being able to collect all the data and interpret the data. Also, this will allow me to advocate for my patients to promote health.

Being a new nurse, it has been tough to critically think, especially working in a trauma hospital. I have been learning little by little, and now I am able to look at my patients, assess their vital signs, and their bloodwork, and interpret the information to provide care that will promote a better outcome for my patient.

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While there are many skills necessary to make a great nursing leader within population-focused nursing, I believe one of the most important traits to have is good communication skills. As a leader, you are involved in many important decisions, policy making, working with staff and patients; the list can go on. Because you work with so many people, not just in terms of numbers, but as well as different personalities, it is crucial you are able to communicate and work well with others. As a leader, you are also serving as a bridge many times to different departments and cohorts, that being able to effectively communicate has significant implications on a organization as a whole. It is also important to have good communication skills as a leader, because many times you are the driving force of action and change within an organization. To help drive action and change, a leader must be able to effectively communicate to others to help them understand the importance of what is trying to be done.

As an ICU nurse, I would utilize good communication skills to educate patients and advocate for them. For many patients and their families, the ICU is an unfamiliar and scary environment. It is so important communicate with patients and families well, to help them better understand what is going and to help ease their minds, as well as help them understand the care that is being provided. It is also important as a nurse, to advocate for my patients and this cannot be done effectively without good communication skills

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Nursing's role in assisting communities necessitates forward-thinking and a willingness to embrace change. This future-oriented mindset enhances the application of the nursing process by delving into potential scenarios, predicting outcomes, and tracking advancements. Such foresight is indispensable in maneuvering through the constantly evolving healthcare landscape and adapting to shifts in healthcare delivery methods. By actively considering future implications and embracing change, nurses can effectively contribute to the well-being of communities, ensuring that healthcare services remain responsive, relevant, and impactful in meeting evolving needs. In my practice setting, integrating future thinking would involve reimagining care delivery models to optimize efficiency and enhance patient outcomes where each nurse is paired with a dedicated assistant for the same set of patients, to improve patient care. By redistributing patient assignments to align with the workload capacities of nurse assistants, the burden on both nurses and assistants can be alleviated, allowing for more focused and efficient care delivery to our vulnerable population. Our population consists of patients recovering from heart or lung transplants. This recovery takes time, and our patient don't always have the strength to take care of their daily needs daily. Yet, if our department had more assistance, patients would have a more focused-oriented experience.

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Advocacy and collaboration: Selina Godina

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Advocacy and collaboration: Selina Godina

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A nursing leadership characteristic, both informal and formal, that is important for population-focused nurses to demonstrate is a collaboration (informal) and advocacy (formal). Collaboration is an important nursing leadership characteristic because it allows nurses to work efficiently together within the community and its partners, such as stakeholders and other healthcare professionals. Collaboration is a valuable nursing leadership characteristic as it brings a great asset to delivering healthcare and addressing the different needs of all populations through a structured, holistic approach. I would use this leadership characteristic to create health promotion by collaborating with health department nurses and attempting ways how to address the population’s needs.

Advocacy is a vital nursing leadership characteristic for population-focused nurses because advocacy helps empower nurses to speak for the community's needs, especially the underserved populations. For example, racial disparities can exist in poor, underserved communities that deserve awareness about this issue. Population-focused nurses who carry the characteristic of advocacy speak up about these issues by raising awareness and coordinating efforts for this specific population to have access to resources and healthcare. I would use this leadership characteristic to create health promotion by working alongside the health department reviewing health disparity rates and addressing the needs of underserved populations. I would attempt to provide them with resources to find local food banks and free mobile clinics where they can receive check-ups.

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Nursing leadership requires certain characteristics such as efficiency, critical thinking skills, and integrity. These traits are important in a billion-dollar industry where cost-effective solutions are essential. A leader who is efficient and has critical thinking skills can use research and evidence-based practices to provide the best possible care while maintaining integrity. For instance, a community health nurse who is efficient and knowledgeable could educate a community with high rates of diabetes and hypertension on the latest research and suggest foods and activities to lower their blood sugar levels, something as simple as drinking enough water throughout the day can lower blood sugar. The focus would be on educating the community about risk factors, and preventative care, and providing information that supports the community at every level of prevention. When they start putting the interventions into practice and notice the results or start feeling healthier they will feel inclined to come back and learn more because trust has been built through the CHN honest approach.

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Nursing is a very caring profession. Selflessness is an essential characteristic of nursing as a whole, but is very important in population focused nursing. Selflessness is having more concern for others wellbeing than our own. Depending on the population being cared for, there can be many challenges. Dealing with challenging situations and people requires selflessness because population focused nursing is about the population, not yourself. Selflessness can show up in many aspects of health promotion. Volunteering to work at a homeless shelter or a vaccine clinic and helping people you do not know are good examples of showing selflessness. I use this characteristic every day is my nursing practice. I work in a busy ER and also work as a sexual assault (SA) nurse. Being a SA nurse can be difficult at times, but I continue to do it with the thought of how much I am helping my patients. This takes a lot of selflessness.

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Nursing Leadership Characteristic: Active Listening- Kellie Bessler

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Nursing Leadership Characteristic: Active Listening- Kellie Bessler

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Describe a nursing leadership characteristic that is important for population-focused nurses to demonstrate and tell us why.

Active listening is an essential characteristic of a leader. Listening to what the person is saying while observing nonverbal communication and cues is an essential part of leadership. Actively listening better equips the listener to provide appropriate feedback. This allows the listener to absorb words, emotions, and underlying concerns. A successful leader should be able to give feedback, but just as important as giving, they should be able to receive feedback.

How would you use that leadership characteristic to create health promotion interventions for an aggregate in your own practice setting?

I use this characteristic every day in my health practice. In the outpatient chemo infusion center, we always listen to the subjective data to determine the patient's needs. Based on what they are saying and how they present physically, we use that information to determine the needs or potential educational topics we will discuss. For example, if a patient states they feel terrible, they aren’t able to eat or drink. We will bring in the dietician to help discuss tips and tricks in addition to going through their medications to help with side effects. Finally, we would ask and encourage the patient to get IV hydration to help with the risk of dehydration. Our goal is to prevent hospitalization, so we always re-educate when needed. We use active listening to determine the patient’s education needs in addition to treatments.

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Leadership qualities: Resilience (Erika Bueno)

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Leadership qualities: Resilience (Erika Bueno)

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Nursing is a field where set backs occur quite often. I believe the most influential nurses are the ones who in the eyes of adversity they push through. Population focused nursing can be difficult when trying to implement changes to laws or policy to benefit the people, we see it all the time in current politics when medicine strives to reach a certain point, but they get set backs from budget or lack of backing for change. A non-resilient person would give up, but continuing to push through for change is extremely important. As a leadership quality, people can quickly adjust and strike again at the next opportunity( 8 Steps to More Resilient Leadership, n.d). If advocating for a certain group of individuals, it can be comforting to watch your advocate not give up on the goal, and continue to push toward a goal. I see it now in my work while I argue with doctors trying to get them to listen to my concerns and my patients concerns. If I want to either receive an answer or get a different order that may help my patient. I most often will only take no for an answer if they are able to back up their thinking, as it is not out of my scope of practice to disagree with MDs.

8 Steps to More Resilient Leadership. (n.d.). CCL. https://www.ccl.org/articles/leading-effectively-articles/8-steps-help-become-resilient/#:~:text=A%20resilient%20leader%20is%20one

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One of the most essential characteristics of nursing leadership is advocacy. Community health nurses research their communities to determine what is affecting the health of the residents and where the gaps are that are preventing optimal well-being. Once CHNs determine the most pressing issues affecting the community's health, they advocate for resources to change those statistics. Additionally, they advocate for policy change to improve conditions for the community. My current community just reinstated a free community clinic in a low-income minority area. This was accomplished through advocacy to help those residents get access to care they had not received before.

In my clinical setting, I use advocacy to improve healing outcomes for my patients. Having a lot of one-on-one time with my patients allows me to evaluate how effective care interventions are. For example, if a patient's pain is not being managed well I will advocate for them by collaborating with the provider to find alternative treatments.

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General Instructions/Steps

An informal nursing leadership characteristic that is vital to practice is that of motivation. Even though a nurse in this position does not hold formal authority, they can easily influence their peers. This includes motivating others to pursue a particular course of action or implement change. I can find ways to motivate my aggregate to learn more about their chronic illness. I work with children ages 3-7, so this would require that I use age-appropriate and child-friendly resources and interventions to accomplish this task. I can also use motivation to encourage parents to comply with evidence-based standards regarding regular health exams, immunizations, and medication compliance.

A formal nursing leadership characteristic that is important to practice is collaboration. In a leadership role, a nurse collaborates with various health professionals within the organization while they collectively work towards a shared vision, mission, values, and expected organizational outcomes. Collaboration is essential for not only employee morale but also the best patient outcomes. Nurses in leadership roles often work with policy development and have to collaborate with different political and governmental officials to accomplish a goal. For the aggregate in my work setting, I can collaborate with fellow clinicians in the school such as OT, PT, Speech, Counselors, Social Workers, psychologists, and even teachers to best serve the students.

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The skill of effective collaboration is essential among population-focused nurses (PFNs). PFNs must be able to communicate clearly and concisely among diverse types of organizations, not just those working in the health care setting. Local, state, and federal collaboration is essential and expected among PFNs to develop and/or amend policies for the well-being of the community they serve. For example, an exemplary school nurse director will collaborate with at least local and state level legislators in addition to teachers, the principal, administrators, psychologists, and various community resources to promote and maintain an optimal level of health and wellness for students and staff. Therefore, barriers to student learning will be decreased or eliminated.

While working as a nurse in the podiatry clinic, collaboration among diabetic educators would have proven to be optimal care for our diabetic patients. Several of our patients were seen in podiatry with diabetic ulcers related to uncontrolled diabetes. This aggregate of patients would benefit from diabetic educational classes and/or even individual instruction. To make this a reality, I would need to collaborate with podiatrists, diabetic educators, managed care departments, insurances, and primary care physicians to support and promote diabetic classes. The goal would be to improve the aggregates autonomy, which would decrease diabetic ulcer occurrences, hospitalization, and healthcare cost. Thereby the health and wellness of this population would be enhanced.

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Advocacy for patients is a strong and important leadership characteristic for nurses because it ensures the protection of patients' rights, promotes health equity, and influences health policies for better patient outcomes. Being a strong advocate is a form of leadership that empowers nurses to act in the best interests of their patients and to influence the broader healthcare system to better meet the needs of all patients.

1.     Protection of Patients' Rights: Nurses are often the primary point of contact for patients within the healthcare system. They are in a unique position to ensure that patients' rights are respected, including the right to privacy, informed consent, and dignified care. By advocating for their patients, nurses can ensure that these rights are upheld.

2.     Promotion of Health Equity: Advocacy allows nurses to champion for policies and resources that promote health equity. They can use their unique understanding of the health needs and challenges of their patients to advocate for changes that address these issues. This can include advocating for access to healthcare services, appropriate care for diverse populations, and addressing social determinants of health.

3.     Influence on Health Policies: Nurses can use advocacy to influence health policies at the local, state, or national level. They can lobby for policies that improve the health outcomes of their patients, such as increased funding for public health initiatives, improved access to care, or changes in healthcare regulations.

If I were a population-focused nurse I could use advocacy to create health promotion interventions in several ways. For example, I’d most likely work with a low-income population that has limited access to fresh, healthy foods. I could advocate for policies that increase the availability of these foods in these communities, such as incentives for grocery stores to open in food deserts or for farmers markets to accept food stamps. I could also partner with local organizations to create community gardens or healthy cooking classes. In addition, I could advocate for my patients on an individual level, such as helping them navigate the healthcare system, understand their health conditions, and make informed decisions about their care.

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Anastasiia Mika - Commitment and critical thinking.

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Anastasiia Mika - Commitment and critical thinking.

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I believe the nursing leadership characteristics required for population-focused nurses are commitment (informal) and critical thinking (formal). Addressing community needs and promoting health equity takes a lot of time and effort, so commitment manifests in continuous dedication to improving health and well-being. Community health nurses stay focused on long-term goals, as when we are talking about community, there are no shortcuts, and you cannot solve an issue within a short period of time. Advocating for underserved population and persisting in efforts to address public health challenges requires commitment because there are a lot of obstacles and setbacks while progressing in the process for better changes. Only true leaders inspire collaboration, foster trust, and make meaningful changes in population health outcomes by showing their dedication to the community.

Critical thinking is another characteristic of nursing leadership that is important for population-focused nurses. It enables leaders to analyze complex public health issues, evaluate evidence-based interventions, and make informed decisions for the benefit of the community. When community nurses possess strong critical thinking skills, they can effectively assess population health data, identify priorities, and develop strategies to address those issues.

I work as a postop nurse, and I would say an aggregate in my own practice setting is patients with postoperative pain. I have to use my critical thinking a lot by assessing the patient's pain level, considering their medical history and allergies, evaluating the effectiveness of previous pain management strategies, and considering potential side effects and drug interactions before administering pain medications. And I commit to patient care by ensuring continuous monitoring and support throughout their recovery at the hospital before they're discharged.

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Empathy & Strategic Thinking - Missa Huitron 

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Empathy & Strategic Thinking - Missa Huitron 

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Missa Huitron

Informal Leadership Characteristic: Empathy

Empathy is a crucial informal leadership characteristic for population-focused nurses. It involves understanding and sharing the feelings of others, particularly those within the populations they serve. Empathy allows nurses to connect with individuals and communities on a deeper level, fostering trust and openness. This connection is vital for effectively assessing community needs, addressing health disparities, and implementing culturally sensitive care. Empathetic leadership helps in tailoring interventions that resonate with the specific values, beliefs, and circumstances of diverse populations, thereby enhancing the efficacy of health promotion and disease prevention strategies. By demonstrating empathy, population-focused nurses can inspire and motivate others informally, leading by example and encouraging a more compassionate, patient-centered approach to care within their teams and organizations.

Formal Leadership Characteristic: Strategic Thinking

Strategic thinking is an essential formal leadership characteristic for population-focused nurses. It involves the ability to analyze complex situations, anticipate future challenges, and develop long-term plans to achieve desired health outcomes for populations. This characteristic requires a deep understanding of the social determinants of health, public health principles, and the healthcare system. Strategic thinking enables population-focused nurses to design and implement effective health programs, policies, and interventions that address the root causes of health issues and promote sustainable health improvements. By employing strategic thinking, nurses can lead formal initiatives, secure resources, and collaborate with stakeholders across various sectors to create environments that support the health and well-being of communities. This leadership trait is crucial for navigating the complexities of population health and achieving lasting change.

Using strategic thinking as a leadership characteristic can significantly enhance the development and implementation of health promotion interventions within a practice setting. Here’s a detailed approach on how to leverage strategic thinking to create effective health promotion strategies for a specific aggregate, such as patients with chronic diseases like diabetes:

1.      Comprehensive Assessment: Begin with a thorough assessment of the aggregate’s needs, preferences, and the barriers they face in managing their condition. This includes understanding their social determinants of health, such as economic stability, education, and access to healthcare services. Strategic thinking involves not only identifying these factors but also predicting how they could change over time and affect the aggregate’s health.

2.      Goal Setting: Use the insights from the assessment to set clear, achievable goals for the health promotion intervention. Goals should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). Strategic thinking aids in aligning these goals with broader health priorities and the specific needs of the aggregate.

3.      Developing a Strategic Plan: With goals in place, develop a strategic plan that outlines the steps to achieve them. This plan should consider various components, such as educational programs, support groups, and policy changes, ensuring they are integrated and complement each other. Strategic thinking helps in foreseeing potential challenges in implementation and incorporating flexibility into the plan to adapt to these challenges.

4.      Stakeholder Engagement: Identify and engage key stakeholders who can support the intervention, including healthcare providers, community leaders, and the patients themselves. Strategic thinking involves understanding the stakeholders’ perspectives and interests and working collaboratively to ensure the intervention’s success.

5.      Implementation and Evaluation: Implement the plan with a focus on monitoring its progress and impact. Use strategic thinking to anticipate how external factors may affect the intervention and be prepared to make necessary adjustments. Continuous evaluation allows for the assessment of whether the intervention’s goals are being met and how it can be improved.

6.      Sustainability and Scaling: Consider the long-term sustainability of the health promotion intervention. This might involve securing funding, integrating successful strategies into regular practice, or expanding the intervention to benefit a larger population. Strategic thinking enables the anticipation of future opportunities for growth and the challenges that may come with scaling the intervention.

Through strategic thinking, a population-focused nurse can ensure that health promotion interventions are not only effective in the short term but also sustainable and adaptable to future changes, leading to lasting improvements in the health of the aggregate.

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The nursing characteristic I will be talking about is empathy and being a good communicator. As a good leader, having empathy to both staff and patient is needed. This will allow the leader to see things according to the view of another without being judgmental. Doing this will increase trust and compliance. It easy to approach a leader who has empathy than a leader who is not. Another characteristic is to be a good and effective communicator. A leader who is concise and clear in her communication will prevent error and misconception giving rise to quick completion of task within little time. A leader that is emphatic and an effective communicator is greatly needed in promoting health in my aggregate in my practice. My aggregate is mostly geriatric patient with diverse health issues and sometimes affected by personal issues. I always consider my patient as my grandparent and call them "papa" and "mama" with their consent and they call me "my baby" most of the time. I always listen to then attentively and communicate with them in the way they understand. This makes my intervention effective increasing compliance. When they share their burden with me, I don't judge or condemn but makes them see a brighter route with their burden. Implementing health promotion intervention is easy for me because there is a baseline of trust between myself, my patient and supporting family member.

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Adaptability stands as a cornerstone characteristic for population-focused nurses due to the dynamic nature of community health needs. In my practice setting, serving low-income families in urban areas, adaptability becomes essential for designing effective health promotion interventions. Through continuous assessment, we gain insights into the evolving health challenges and socioeconomic factors affecting the community. This allows us to tailor interventions to address the most pressing issues, whether they are related to chronic diseases, mental health, or access to healthcare services.

Collaboration lies at the heart of adaptive leadership in population-focused nursing. By forging partnerships with community leaders, healthcare providers, and social service agencies, we can pool resources and expertise to develop comprehensive interventions. This collaborative approach not only enhances the reach and impact of our initiatives but also ensures that interventions are culturally sensitive and responsive to the unique needs of the population. Additionally, collaboration enables us to stay informed about emerging health trends and adapt our strategies accordingly.

An adaptive approach to technology integration further enhances the effectiveness of health promotion interventions. Embracing advancements such as telemedicine or mobile health applications allows us to overcome barriers to access and engage with the community in innovative ways. By leveraging technology, we can deliver health education, provide remote consultations, and facilitate health behavior tracking, thus empowering individuals to take control of their health. This integration of technology ensures that our interventions remain relevant and accessible in an increasingly digital world, demonstrating our commitment to meeting the evolving needs of the population.

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Excellent Communication Skills (Jackie Ogawa)

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Excellent Communication Skills (Jackie Ogawa)

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Describe a nursing leadership characteristic that is important for population-focused nurses to demonstrate and tell us why.

Excellent Communication Skills. Nurse Leaders must be able to effectively communicate with different specialists. Our ability to do so allows us to build rapport and establish trust with the people we serve. It also ensures health information is clearly understood by all parties. Effective Communication is fundamental to nursing care, which is why we are taught the importance of using the SBAR to communicate with physicians. Nurses have a different focus than physicians and we are taught from the very beginning how to consolidate that information and communicate it effectively. Population Focused Nurses are involved in a lot more committee work than hospital nurses, so they need to learn how to discuss the needs of aggregates with different stakeholders effectively. For example, school nurses need to be able to coordinate care by getting parents, their children, clinicians and school faculty on the same page - each of these groups will have a different understanding of what the abnormal findings are and what to do about it.

How would you use that leadership characteristic to create health promotion interventions for an aggregate in your own practice setting?

I work as a post surgical nurse. It’s challenging to have a non native English Speaking Patient, in that it’s very time consuming to ask a translator all my assessment questions. Frequently nurses in my unit will use “just enough” Spanish to assess their patients without using the language line. An intervention in my setting would be tailored to meet the need of the aggregate to have culturally competent care providers, by having the nurses complete an Inservice on the needs of Latin American Patients, to make them more effective communicators. For example, there are times that I have found Latin American Patients underrate their pain, and I wonder if this is perhaps because they don’t fully understand the pain-rating scale, (which puts patients post-op at risk for many complications, such as pneumonia if they are taking shallow breaths). A Health Promotion Intervention would be an in-service discussing trends in the aggregate of Latin American Immigrants getting surgery and how they rate their pain and how nurses can discuss their options, beyond just putting a number on pain, for pain relief. And empowering nurses to use other forms of communication, such as imitating a grimace when the patient goes to the bathroom, to demonstrate that the patient should request more pain medication.

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Nursing Leadership Characteristics - (Brian Lang)

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Nursing Leadership Characteristics - (Brian Lang)

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A vital nursing leadership characteristic for population-focused nurses is cultural competency.  They must understand and respect the cultural backgrounds, beliefs, and values of the diverse populations they serve. Cultural competency allows nurses to better communicate with individuals from different cultural backgrounds, establish trust, and provide culturally sensitive care that aligns with each patient's or community's preferences and needs.  These nurses also must understand the social determinants of care that each category of people may experience. By being culturally competent, the population-focused nurse is better equipped to advocate for unique groups of people.

I would use this leadership quality by developing unique interventions for each population segment in my practice. This would require researching the predominant cultures in the area and collecting data on various demographic factors, including housing arrangements, age distribution, insurance coverage rates, educational levels, and financial status. By understanding the unique needs and social determinants of health within each segment, I can better find resources and design interventions accordingly.

Additionally, knowing the cultural background of the population allows for providing different interventions, such as language translations or access to community services for individuals who may not speak English as their primary language. This helps to improve access to care and can improve health outcomes.