All Entries Tagged With: "nurse manager"
Making the leap from “one of us” to “one of them”
One day you’re part of the group. Helping each other out, complaining about never having the supplies you want when you need them, and chipping in for pot luck holiday meals. The next, you’re promoted to manager and suddenly you become “one of them.”
Becoming a nurse manager is a tough transition for anyone, but it’s even harder when you become manager of the same unit where you worked as a staff nurse. Suddenly, you’re the one with the power—you can finally make the decisions you’ve always wanted to—but you also have all the responsibility.
One of the hardest issues to navigate is reconfiguring the relationships between yourself and your former peers. It’s key to acknowledge that the relationship has changed and that your new role is quite different.
Shelley Cohen, RN, MS, CEN, president of Health Resources Unlimited, and staunch nurse manager advocate, has written that the first things to do is obtain a copy of your job description and share it with staff. That was, they understand what you’re accountable for and what your priorities will be. [more]
Confusing terminology: Understanding the difference between patient satisfaction and patient experience
Everyone is talking about patient experience these days and the term is often used interchangeably with patient satisfaction. In fact, the two are different concepts. Here’s a primer:
Patient satisfaction
Patient satisfaction speaks to the quality of care. Patient satisfaction surveys are used to identify issues and spot problems as they measure what actually happened.
Patient satisfaction isn’t owned by marketing or by the c-suite. It is owned by the direct caregivers and the frontline staff who interact with patients every day.
ANA praises Joint Commission standards for nurse-led medical homes
The American Nurses Association (ANA) issued a press release applauding The Joint Commission for implementing standards that allow nurse-led practices to qualify as primary care medical homes.
Beginning July 1, The Joint Commission will use a set of ambulatory care guidelines to accredit primary care medical homes, a decision the ANA says will give advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) the opportunity to provide services to patients under an innovative care delivery model.
Medical homes have been encouraged by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) as a way to provide more cost-effective, high-quality, patient-centered care, as well as more choice and access to patients seeking care.
According to a statement on the Joint Commission website, the new primary care medical home (PCMH) option will focus mostly on education and self-management of the patient. Care provided by other clinicians and facilities is tracked and coordinated by a primary care clinician and an interdisciplinary team, and evidence-based treatment practices guide their care. The PCMH opportunity is also aimed at improving patient satisfaction and patient outcomes.
Applications are now being accepted from organizations ready for survey.
Click here to read the ANA news release.
Preceptor perspectives: Reporting a near miss event
by Julie Harris, RN, MSN
Who likes to get in trouble? I know that I sure don’t! Yet, reporting a near miss event sometimes feels like that. Let’s look at a scenario that demonstrates this feeling:
One night Mason noticed a medication error from the pharmacy. They sent up the wrong dose of medication for his patient. After sending the medication back to the pharmacy, Mason filled out an occurrence form and placed it in his manager’s box. Several days later, the manager called him into a meeting with the pharmacy and other managers. They wanted him to explain the near miss event. He did and then was excused from the remainder of the meeting. Mason left feeling like he received a slap on the hand for reporting the near miss. He wondered if he should bother reporting any other near misses in the future.
This scenario is common throughout hospitals and healthcare facilities. Mason felt like he was in trouble for reporting the near miss event.
Many nurses, like Mason, do not see the “big picture” when it comes to reporting a near miss. And many times, this is due to a lack of just culture training from the hospital. Nurses are told they have to report near miss events. But, they are not told why to report such events or the outcomes of their report.
Preceptors can help solve this problem by training orientees and other staff members on the “big picture” of near miss reporting. This training should include:
- The importance of reporting a near miss event
- What qualifies as a near miss event
- How to report a near miss event (i.e. how to fill out the form)
- Where the report goes after it leaves the nurse
- Who to contact for follow up
- Examples of near miss events and their outcomes involving process change, patient safety, etc.
High-quality, safe patient care is the goal for all hospitals and healthcare facilities. Reporting near miss events is one avenue for nurses, especially preceptors, to take in order to achieve this goal!
AHAP Conference at Caesar’s Palace, Las Vegas
Save the date, and enter our contest, too!
HCPro’s Association for Healthcare Accreditation Professionals (AHAP) is hosting this year’s AHAP conference at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas on May 12-13th, 2011. Topics will include regulatory changes for 2011, core measures, risk assessments, and survey readiness, as well as a roundtable discussion where you can share your successes, challenges, and best practices about top accreditation and patient care issues.
Launched in September 2006, AHAP now has close to 500 members. The 2011 conference will be the association’s fifth annual conference, and you don’t have to be a member to attend. This year’s conference is one you won’t want to miss. It will feature sessions about preparing for both The Joint Commission and CMS surveys, restraint, high risk procedures outside of the OR, effectively presenting data, infection control, as well as patient care, quality improvement, and more!
AHAP is also hosting a contest for best survey preparation tool, policy, or activity. To enter, submit a sample tool, policy, or a brief write-up about a recent (2010-2011) accreditation survey by Friday, April 8th. Click here to read the full contest rules, and please send all of your entries directly to mphillion@hcpro.com. The tools can be any examples that have helped you do your job better. Visit the AHAP Blog to see contest entries that have already been submitted. These sample documents will be posted to the AHAP Blog throughout the remainder of the month.
Preceptor Perspectives: I’m a leader, too!
In a complex healthcare environment, nurses seek out other team members they can count on. They want to work with people they can rely on and who can tackle and conquer daily problems. They are looking for leaders.
Leaders demonstrate traits and qualities that help them address nursing issues head on. They motivate other nurses to do their best. Does this description sound familiar? Of course it does – because preceptors are leaders!
Effective precepting: Giving feedback to orientees
Whenever I conduct a preceptor workshop, I always ask the question, “What is the most difficult aspect of precepting?” I usually get a range of answers, but at least one nurse will always say, “Providing feedback to orientees.” Providing feedback can be difficult, especially if it is your first time doing it.
In a preceptor-orientee relationship, the best type of feedback to provide is constructive feedback. Constructive feedback focuses on improving orientees’ performance by reinforcing desired behavior, and correcting poor performance. It allows orientees to maintain their motivation for learning, and enables them to experience at least partial success.
Rebecca Schorn: Image of nursing in clinical practice
HCPro’s Image of Nursing in Clinical Practice award recognizes nurses who embody a positive image of nursing through their clinical excellence. The award goes to a nurse who has made significant contributions to improve patient outcomes, patient safety/quality initiatives, staff satisfaction, practice changes, research or evidence-based practice projects, interdisciplinary collaboration, or organizational goals.
This year, the judges gave the honor to Rebecca Schorn, RN, BSN, CCRN, nurse clinician level 4 in the PICU at Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, DE. Schorn serves in a direct care role, providing hands-on, evidence-based nursing care, while simultaneously attending to the emotional and spiritual needs of her patients and their families.
Who’s making the most money?
According to the recently released 2008 National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses, a nurse’s salary is most highly correlated with his or her level of education. Typically, nurses in an advanced practice specialty or higher-level management position are the ones with the highest earnings.
Survey results show the top 10 nursing salaries as follows:
1. Nurse anesthetist: $154,221
2. Management/administration: senior management: $96,735
3. Nurse practitioner: $85,025
4. Nurse midwife: $82,111
5. Management/administration: $78,356
6. Consultant: $76,473
7. Informatics nurse: $75,242
8. Management/administration: middle management: $74,799
9. Clinical nurse specialist: $72,856
10. Management/administration: first-line management: $72,006
Tip of the month: Guidelines for using social media as background checks
By Shelley Cohen
The Internet has proved to be a great resource to managers with the greatest challenge seeming to be finding the time to research all that is available to us. Along with medical and nursing resources, the Internet has become a social highway for individuals as well as organizations.
As the generation gap continues to grow, managers are continuously amazed to hear of personal concerns being posted to social networks such as Facebook. On one hand, some of these sites may provide an opportunity for “pre-screening” job applicants. On the other hand, we see the benefit of looking up a prospective applicant and finding out they are a source for purchasing drugs or the real reasons they were fired from their last job. A question raised on the other side of this is one of discriminatory action. What if you declined to hire a person based on a social networking site story about them and you later find out, the posting was unreliable?
