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Alexis Diaz-Cazares : Collaborative and Team work 

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Alexis Diaz-Cazares : Collaborative and Team work 

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I believe that collaborative teamwork is truly important as a nursing leadership characteristic. Community Health Nurses (CHNs) must collaborate with doctors, social workers, other nurses, and patients to help them access resources and provide education to the population or individual patients. As CHNs, they also need to communicate with community organizations and stakeholders. Working as a team can assist in caring for the patient as a whole and addressing their needs.

For example, if you want to start an educational class for patients with diabetes, you could reach out to a doctor to discuss what diabetes is and how it affects the body. Then, you could contact a dietitian to provide classes on food preparation and how to count carbohydrates. You can also collaborate with the local health department to donate supplies to patients who can't afford glucometers or provide vouchers or discounts.

A way I use this intervention in the hospital I work with is we work with teamwork and collaboration is as a nurse we ask the patients questions of determinate of health, so we asked them about their housing situation and food situation at home. If the patient answers to those questions as needing help, then an alert will be sent to the care coordinator to get resources for the patient. We also work with dieticians, to help educate patient on diet and can collaborate with them to make sure the patient is eating enough or things that we can do to improve the patient’s diet.

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Patient advocacy is an important characteristic for population-focused care, because some communities or individuals do not know what is best for them. Unfortunately, some people can't speak up for themselves, so that is why it is important an individual understands the patient's wants and needs. I believe that we can educate communities and individuals on certain issues so they know why we are advocating and why others should advocate as well. Part of spreading advocacy and education is have proper communication skills. Having the proper communication skills on what issues need to be advocated can help resolve the issue.

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Working on the trauma unit, I understand the importance of compassionate presence in our daily interactions with patients. Suffering isn't always loud; it can be quiet and hidden beneath the surface. This is particularly true for our trauma patients, who may be facing not just physical injuries but also emotional and psychological distress. Compassionate presence allows me to connect with them on a deeper level, acknowledging their pain and providing the support they need. In the fast-paced environment of the trauma unit, it's crucial to remember that healing goes beyond just physical wounds. By demonstrating compassionate presence, I can create interventions tailored to address the holistic needs of our patients. This might include organizing support groups for trauma survivors, offering mindfulness sessions to cope with the emotional aftermath, and collaborating with our hospital's chaplaincy for spiritual guidance.

In practice, I've seen the impact of compassionate presence on our trauma patients. For example, organizing a support group for survivors of serious accidents allows them to share their experiences and find solace in knowing they're not alone. We bring in a mindfulness instructor to teach techniques for managing the stress and anxiety that often accompany traumatic events. Collaborating with our chaplaincy provides an avenue for those seeking spiritual guidance or simply a listening ear. These interventions, while not traditional medical treatments, are crucial for addressing the emotional and spiritual dimensions of suffering. As a trauma nurse, I also advocate for policies that support our patients outside the hospital, ensuring they have access to resources for long-term recovery. Through compassionate presence and holistic care, we promote healing in our trauma unit, helping our patients navigate the journey to recovery.

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I think being communication skills would be the most important characteristic for a population-focused nurse. Strong communication skills will allow the nurse to be able to voice her ideas with the right people to get things moving for the community. A population-focused nurse needs to be able to work well with other healthcare professionals, government officials, and most importantly with the people of the community. And that would be accomplished with good communication for a large target population.

As a nurse in the ED, communication with the patient and the health care team is crucial for patient care and survival. The ED MD has so many patients to see and work with, they rely on the nurses to be able to efficiently communicate with the MD to get the patient the right care quickly.

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Advocacy is a leadership characteristic important for not just population-focused nurses but all nurses. Advocacy is speaking up for the needs and rights of individuals and communities, particularly those who are vulnerable or marginalized. I work in the OR and my patients are all sedated. A huge part of my job is acting as an advocate for my patients while they are unconscious. I will speak up if a patient’s positioning does not look good or if anything during the procedure does not align with the wishes of the patient. There are many times a day that I act as an advocate for my patients.  It is pertinent that advocacy is used when patients cannot do it for themselves.

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Collaborative communication is crucial for population-focused nursing. It promotes teamwork and this helps to effectively coordinate patient care and optimize outcomes.

I work in the CVICU and always utilize collaborative communication to engage with various services involved in the patients care team. This facilitates communication between service and the patient. I ensure to address my concerns and share ideas.

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Collaboration fosters teamwork, mutual respect, and shared decision-making, which are essential in providing comprehensive care to premature infants and their families.

In my NICU practice setting, collaboration plays a pivotal role in developing interventions to support premature infants' developmental needs. By working closely with neonatologists, developmental specialists, and social workers, we can create tailored care plans that address the unique medical, emotional, and developmental requirements of each infant. Through collaboration, NICU nurses can ensure continuity of care, optimize outcomes, and provide holistic support to families throughout their NICU journey, ultimately promoting the health and well-being of the newborns in our care.

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One leadership trait important to public health nurses is being good and having open communication. Most nurses develop this habit of good communication at the bedside. Nurses learn that the most essential tool is their ability to listen and respond to patients during assessments, interventions, and follow-up. Sometimes, their ability to listen with and without words can save patients' lives. It is also essential to hear in public health because nurses sometimes assess entire communities. Nurses must communicate with all of the voices from the community and use them to make crucial decisions that can affect everyone.

I would use listening to promote health in my practice by ensuring that my team makes follow-up calls with surgical patients. I also ensure that my team members practice active listening and provide necessary feedback when patients do not have ideal experiences after surgery. I would also promote listening to my team by ensuring that the operating room nurses have monthly meetings and fifteen-minute morning huddles twice weekly. This is very important because when nurses work in surgery, the circulators have little time to talk to each other. After all, we don’t work with each other very often. For most of the day, the circulators are confined to their assigned ORs; this can create a sense of isolation, which can be unhealthy for the work environment. Regular meetings with leadership actively listening and responding to concerns can create a more pleasant and positive work environment.

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Stacey L. Hastie-Great with Communication and transparency

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Stacey L. Hastie-Great with Communication and transparency

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I don't believe there is such a thing as a bag leader. If a leader is bad, they are not a leader at all. A leader communicates with everyone and is sometimes slow to speak and quick to listen. A leader knows who to speak with at the appropriate time and how to speak to them. A leader seeks truth and does not participate in gossip or rumors. A leader knows the value of their voice but also the voice of everyone else. A leader can speak well about others, and can get their point across. A leader can communicate successes and failures and communicated honestly.

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One crucial nursing leadership characteristic for population-focused nurses to demonstrate is advocacy. Advocacy involves actively supporting and promoting the rights, needs, and interests of individuals, families, communities, and populations. This is very important because advocacy provides a voice for the vulnerable. CHNs often work with vulnerable communities that may lack resources or power. Advocacy ensures that the voices of these populations are heard and their needs are addressed, especially when it comes to healthcare access, policies, and interventions.

In my practice setting, low-income families are a significant aggregate. I would use the nursing leadership characteristic of advocacy to promote health by conducting a thorough assessment to understand the specific health needs and challenges faced by this community. This would involve engaging with community members, local organizations, and public health agencies to gather insights into their lived experiences, health behaviors, and access to healthcare services. With data and insights from the assessment, I would advocate for policy changes at various levels of government to address the root causes of health disparities affecting the community. This could involve advocating for increased funding for community health centers, expansion of Medicaid coverage, implementation of zoning policies to increase access to fresh produce, or initiatives to improve housing conditions.

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A crucial leadership characteristic for population-focused nurses is empathy. Empathy enables nurses to understand and connect with the diverse needs, experiences, and challenges of the communities they serve. By fostering empathy, nurses can build trust, facilitate effective communication, and tailor interventions to address the unique circumstances of individuals and populations. This empathetic approach enhances patient-centered care, promotes health equity, and strengthens the nurse's ability to advocate for marginalized communities.

In my practice setting, I would utilize empathy to develop tailored health promotion interventions for the targeted aggregate. By understanding their unique needs, cultural backgrounds, and challenges, I would design interventions that foster trust, address barriers, and empower individuals and communities to take charge of their health. Through collaboration, cultural sensitivity, and continuous evaluation, these interventions would not only improve health outcomes but also promote inclusivity and respect for the diverse perspectives within the population.

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Being a good listener is a nursing leadership characteristic that is important for population-focused nurses to demonstrate. Because CHNs are defined by the core functions of assessment, assurance, and policy development, these nurses must pay close attention to what their patients are saying when they describe important details such as pain, medical history, and mental status. I am currently training to become a dialysis nurse so it is imperative to listen carefully to what my patients say from the moment I see them to the moment they leave the treatment area. This will ensure that they are fit for dialysis and will avoid any complications or interruptions.

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An important characteristic of population-focused nursing is problem-solving. Problem-solving is important because it allows nurses to address complex community-wide issues. Community health nurses often deal with issues like noncompliance or issues of people not being able to afford things. With great problem-solving skills, they are able to come up with ways in which they can help people get the care they need or even come up with ways to keep patients and clients compliant with care.

An informal characteristic would be something like empathy or even good listening skills. With either of those characteristics, you can potentially change someone's day by just listening to them when they need to let out their frustrations. Even just being able to understand what they are going through will help.

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A characteristic that is important in population-focused nursing is trustworthiness. It is important because to have a healthy patient-nurse dynamic patients must be able to trust your judgement, trust your advocacy, and rely on you to provide them the best quality care. Trust is a very fragile thing, and it can have major impacts on patient outcome. If a patient feels they can not trust the nurses or practitioners caring for them this could result in missed appointments, inconsistencies with medication adherence, denial of new symptoms, and many other issues.

I use trustworthiness in my own practice to help build a strong rapport with my patients. Allowing my patients to feel safe and supported, and show them that there is someone who has their best interest is working diligently to help them recover. In the OR, I have very limited exchange with my patients, but those few moments I have are crucial. I enter their pre-op room and introduce myself, I ensure I ask them questions and acknowledge them and not just the parents, and I find something to help ease their anxiety such as music or a tv show they can watch on my phone as we roll back to the operating room. For smaller infants, I ask the parents if they think their child will be more comfortable being held or laying down in the crib, so that parents feel a sense of some relief that their child is in good hands. On our way to the operating room I try to engage in conversation to allow the child an opportunity to ask questions or simply talk to release any anxiety. Once in the operating room, I make sure to talk my patients through every step that is happening until they fall asleep as to avoid causing anymore anxiety.

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A nursing leadership quality that is important for population-focused nursing is advocacy. It is important for nurses to demonstrate this quality as an important factor of community health promotion is empowering communities regarding their health. The nurse can help the community reach better health outcomes by advocating and speaking up for the underserved and underprivileged people within the community. Through advocacy, a nurse can help push to make problem areas such as health disparities, food deserts, health care shortage areas, etc more known and thus help these areas receive help. Through advocacy, a nurse promotes and enhances community well-being.

Advocacy can be used to create health promotion interventions for all aggregates. I work on the Labor and Delivery unit and a big part of patient care is advocating for our patients to different types of physicians, such as the Obstetricians and the anesthesiologists. There are so many times where a patient will speak up to the nurse before the physician. In a way, the nurse is the middle man and by getting the adequate information and patient condition to the physicians, the nurse advocates for her patient. An example of advocacy on L&D would be a patient wanting an epidural, while still in early labor. As a nurse, I would advocate for my patient to get an epidural when they need it vs. when the doctor would like for it to get placed. This ensures that my patient has a great birth experience, minimal pain, and a better outcome mentally and physically.

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The nursing leaderships characteristic is transformational leadership. This type of leadership helps develop interventions and promotes health. It inspires the wokers to ahieve their goals and motavaite them in their performance. It is a positive leadership that promotes health within the workplace. By planning a vision for the future and enhancing values and aspirations will allow the wokers to feel the support needed. I use this type of leadership in my own practice by using new innovation ideas and collaborating with my cowokers. This leadership is based of trust and respect and allows me to partnership with my cowokers. This maximizes the care being provided and enhance best patient care. Transformational leadership empowers others to take control of their care and work together. The outcome of this leadership is to provide sustainable and positive otucomes.

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An informal characteristic that I think is important for population-focused nursing leaders to have would be respect. This is because it is easier to follow and trust a leader that has gained the respect of others. It also shows that the leader has earned the respect through potential support, guidance, and connection. Respect is crucial for individuals to follow directions and adapt to change faster.

I would use respect to develop population-focused interventions through the utilization of trust and understanding. When people resepct you, they trust your decision and advice. This is noticed in my practice setting when administering chemotherapy or advocating for further testing on patients. Parents adapt to fast-paced changes better when they have a nurse or physician they trust guiding the change.

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A characteristic that is important for population-focused nurses is being a good critical thinker. This is important because nurses not only have to carry out orders but they also have to look at their patients as a whole, and apply other interventions when needed. Nurses need to be able to tell if a patients condition is deteriorating and additional help is needed. As I work in the ICU, this would help create help promotion as patients condition is ever changing. A patient can be a transfer patient but all of a sudden display a different rhythm on the cardiac monitor and I as the nurse need to be able to recognize that and notify the doctor. Critical thinking gets better with time and experience, but nurses do slowly develop these skills.

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A population-focused nursing leadership characteristic that is important to demonstrate is efficiency. Efficient leaders perform in the best way possible with minimal waste of time, effort, and resources. This is important for population-focused nurses to practice because population-focused nursing focuses on aggregate groups and big populations. To make change in a large group or aggregate time, effort, and resources must be used wisely so they are not wasted.

In my practice, I could use efficiency in many ways. lets say my aggregate group in my practice is post-op surgical patients. I can use efficiency by clustering care, prioritizing certain interventions, and communicating with the care team/patient to save me time to create new interventions, education, and critical think to better serve my patients.

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A characteristic that I think is important for all leaders to posses is passion. Leaders who are passionate about what they do, will make greater efforts to make changes. A leader must want to be one, rather then have to be one. Passionate leaders have a strong drive to achieve their goals and passionate nurses truly enjoy what they do and want to help patients, families and communities achieve well-being.

In my practice of proving hospice and palliative care to geriatric patients, passionate leadership can ensure these patients get compassionate, ethical, empathetic, and quality care. Passionate leaders want their team to be passionate as well, because when nurses go into the field for wrong reasons then patient centeredness care and quality is reduced. CHN's can't make change to better the community if they don't care about alleviating heath disparities. A passionate leader will recruit passionate nurses to work alongside, they will be engaged in their community to seek out their needs and make it their goal to help these people obtain their needs. Passionate leaders will go that extra step to help this community achieve well-being. For instance, in hospice care, a passionate leader will ensure that hospice patients understand what hospice is and what it offers through community meetings or one-on-one meetings, they will also ensure competent nurses care for these patients in their final moments and they will ensure the needs of this patient/family were addressed and taken care of within reason.

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Trang Pham creates this post

A Delphi'a survey shows that an exceptional nursing leader exhibits the attribution of being a change agent (Jivraj Shariff, 2015). Nursing leaders play a vital role in driving positive change within healthcare organizations, clinical settings, and communities. For instance, a change agent leads quality improvement initiatives aimed at enhancing patient care, or advocates for the development of policies at local and national levels that promote health equity. Jivraij Shariff (2015) suggests that policy development is an essential core function of a population-focused nurse and it also serves as an important determinant of an effective leader. Another reason being a change agent is a critical characteristic of nursing leadership is to inspire and empower others to embrace changes and strive for innovation and excellence in nursing practice.

I am currently practicing perioperative nursing and I am not a formal leader. I believe that by acting as a change agent, I can contribute to enhancing outcomes for surgical patients. For instance, I participate as a member of my Unit-Based Council, I collect my coworkers' thoughts on opportunities and areas for improving patient safety before, during, and after surgery. During my research, I found that incorrect surgical site marking has become a significant concern at my work. I present several strategies to address the problem. These strategies include double-checking to verify the accuracy of surgical site marking and the patient's identity, surgical site, and procedure should be addressed during the time-out and before the start of the surgery. A reason for this problem is time pressure can lead to shortcuts in safety checks including double-checking surgical site markings. Hence, healthcare professionals should allocate enough time for safety and checks during surgical time-outs and music stops during time-outs to prevent distraction. Besides the surgical team should be allocated sufficient time to verify surgical marking

Reference

Jivraj Shariff, N. (2015). A Delphi survey of leadership attributes necessary for national nurse leaders’ participation in health policy development: an East African perspective. BMC Nursing, 14(1), 13–13. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-015-0063-0

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This post is by Arkadiy Loginov.

Cultural competence. Population-focused nurses must understand and address the unique cultural, social, and economic factors influencing health within diverse communities. In the ICU where I work, this competence is critical for developing culturally sensitive health promotion interventions that respect patients' beliefs, values, and preferences. For instance, a population-focused nurse can collaborate with ICU staff to ensure that educational materials and interventions are culturally appropriate and accessible to patients from different cultural backgrounds.

In addition, they can advocate for interpreter services or cultural liaisons to facilitate communication and enhance patient engagement in health promotion activities.

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One nursing leadership characteristic for population focused nurses is to demonstrate visionary leadership. Visionary leadership involves having a clear and compelling vision for the future of population health and ability to inspire but also motivate others to work towards that vision. This is essential since it enables nurses to effectively lead change initiatives and to develop innovative strategies.

In my own practice I would use visionary leadership to create health promotion interventions for an aggregate by first establishing a shared vision of optimal health and well being. I would engage community members, healthcare providers, policy makers, and local organizations. This will help collab with them and create strategies. I would also articulate compelling vision for the desired future state of population health. This would require emphasizing preventative measures, health promotion activities, and community empowerment. By inspiring others with vision, I would foster a sense of collective purpose and commitment to improving health outcomes.

Having health education campaigns, partnership with local schools or businesses to promote healthy behaviors or even advocating for policy changes to create supportive environments.

I would continuously communicate the vision, monitor progress towards goals, and adapt strategies to alignment with overarching vision of population health improvement. By demonstrating visionary leadership. I would also mobilize resources and build partnership to empower individuals and communities to actively participate in their own health promotion.

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A nursing leadership characteristic that is important to demonstrate is vision. When public health nurses have vision, they can implement new changes that will positively impact the health of the community. In my own practice setting I work with a lot of heart failure patients. A vision that I have is to improve the overall health of heart failure patients outside of the hospital. This includes counseling people with nutrition and exercise and coming up with a program that includes a coach outside of the hospital. I could implement my vision by coming up with a plan for heart failure patients to have a health coach outside of the hospital. - Erin Borgeson

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A nursing leadership characteristic that is important for population-focused nurses to demonstrate is communication. Communication is essential within a healthcare team, but also when dealing with patients. Without communication mistakes and confusion would occur.

I would use the leadership characteristic of communication by holding informational meetings with the public regarding heart health. During these meetings people will be educated on risk factors, healthy changes that can be made, and signs/symptoms of heart disease.  This health promotion intervention utilizes communication of the nurse to the community.

-Karisma Danguilan

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Addressing Mental Health through Creative Problem Solving- Sheri Mau

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Addressing Mental Health through Creative Problem Solving- Sheri Mau

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A leadership characteristic important for a population-focused nurse to demonstrate is creative and innovative problem-solving skills. This is essential because many challenges are complex, multi-faceted and require collaboration across disciplines. Additionally, within communities are subgroups, each with unique cultural characteristics. Nurses need to be able to integrate the individual sociocultural characteristics of the community in a relevant and engaging way to address public health problems. This takes problem solving skills and ability to think of creative solutions.

To address mental health at the community level I would creatively problem solve to encourage community connection- since social isolation greatly impacts mental health. I would create a program to target individuals with mental health diagnosis's that mimics programs at local senior centers. This would include health promotion and programs on topics of interest and group outings. Since community populations are unique, I would work with the community to assess their interests- but sports events or museum outings could be a possibility. I would work with the community to find their interests and work with organizations to find donations- such as free tickets to events.

I think this is a creative solution to help encourage engagement and build needed relationships for these individuals.

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The NHS Community Mental Health Transformation