Importance Of A Nurse Manager

Introduction

A Nurse Manager is the leader, organiser and facilitator of a ward or area (Swansburg and Swansburg, 2002). To be an effective Nurse Manager one must ensure that all employees understand the mission statement of the ward and incorporate it into their nursing willingly (Swansburg and Swansburg, 2002). In this essay the writer will critically discuss the influence that Nursing Management has on the standard of quality care to patients. This will not only be done by using examples from literature but also by the writers experience in the clinical area.

Risk Assessment

A Nurse Manager promotes the improvement of quality care for patients. A Nurse Manager influences the quality of patient care by ensuring there are no risks to patients;

It is important to note that patient satisfaction is not the main aim of quality improvement (Moore and Woodrow, 2009). A patient may not be satisfied leaving the hospital, it is important to remember that this does not directly relate to the patient’s health improvement during their stay, this is usually as a result of poor food quality or lack of sleep due to the noisy environment (Moore and Woodrow, 2009). Although these are issues that a patient should not have to face, the main aim of the Nurse Manager is to ensure that the patients call bells are answered in a timely fashion and that the patient received the most appropriate nursing and medical care (Marquis and Huston, 2006). The hospital in which the writer is affiliated to is accredited by the Joint Commission for Accreditation of Health Care Organisations (JCAHO), the aim of the JCAHO is to ensure quality care is maintained in all hospital settings. The benefit of the JCAHO for hospitals and healthcare organisations is that the organisation is distinct no governmental organisation that does not have any associations with the hospital, this enables them to provide non biased audits (Joint Commission International, 2002). This enables the Nurse Manager to acquire information on quality of care from a non biased source. On a ward audits should also be

This will also encourage the staff to ensure standards of care are always maintained. Carrying out clinical audits and assessing patient care on the ward on a continuous basis and ensures that the quality of the ward is improved if needed. A Nurse Manager should ensure that the quality of the ward is improving by ensuring that adverse incidences are controlled or eradicated and that all members of staff are participating in all protocols put in place. Although a Nurse Manager cannot control whether or not documentation is hand written or submitted electronically, he or she should ensure that all information is documented and that this is done so correctly. When these protocols are in place not only will the Nurse Manager follow then but the nurses will also follow them. This leads to a better standard of care for patients in the