You're Reading a Free Preview This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. For information on cookies and how you can disable them visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy. Got it, thanks! Nurse leaders must ensure the day-to-day operation of their unit(s) in a rapidly evolving health care system. Nurse leaders are often called upon to be agents of change and are often responsible for the success of a project. Yet the literature suggests that leaders continue to struggle with change despite the frequency with which they are involved in leading change (Gilley, Gilley, & McMillan, 2009; Quinn, 2004). A change agent is an individual who has formal or informal legitimate power and whose purpose is to direct and guide change (Sullivan, 2012). This person identifies a vision and rationale for the change and is a role model for nurses and other health care personnel. Nurse leaders’ behaviours influence staff actions that contribute to change (Drucker, 1999; Yukl, 2013). The significant number of changes that nurse leaders face require new ways of thinking about leading change and adapting to new ways of working. Moreover, leaders work closely with frontline care providers to identify necessary change in the workplace that would improve work processes and patient care. As such, nurse leaders must have the requisite skills for influencing human behaviour, including supervisory ability, intelligence, the need for achievement, decisiveness, and persistence to guide the process (Gilley et al., 2009). Effective change management requires the leader to be knowledgeable about the process, tools, and techniques required to improve outcomes (Shirey, 2013). Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer. To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to upgrade your browser. Being a change agent is a major function for nurses. Nurses are on the floor seeing the effects medicine and the health care system is having on the patient. We know that some things are getting better for the patient and other things are not. We must be vocal about the changes that are working and those that aren’t, and about what still needs to change. Nurses comprise the largest sector of the health care workforce in the United States and in most other countries. There are more than 3 million nurses in the United States alone. We can play a critical role in shaping the health care system of the future. There are barriers keeping nurses from being effective change agents in the ever evolving health care system. These barriers need to be fully identified, recognized, and overcome for nurses to be in the position to lead change and demonstrate the ability to be change agents. Some of the barriers for nurses to be a major leader in change is that nurses need to be allowed to practice to the full level of their nursing education and training. Nurses also need to be recognized as a fully functioning discipline in health care delivery and be a full partner in health care decision making. One example of nurses being involved in facilitating change is in decreasing hospital re-admissions. When nurses are assigned to elderly, high risk patients that are likely to relapse, re-admissions go down. This was demonstrated at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia with the Transitional Care Model program. In this program the nurse follows the patient up to three months after discharge, attending their medical appointments, and collaborating with physicians, caregivers, and family. This program demonstrated a significant reduction in the number of hospital readmission and costs dropped by as much as $5,000 per patient. Unfortunately, many third-party-payers and institutions are not willing or not structured in a way to pay for nurse-directed programs. Nurses must continue to look for ways to impact change within the health care system. You don’t have to be a nurse manager to be a change agent. Any nurse can have a significant impact on needed change within nursing. If you see a change that could occur that you think would have an impact, discuss it with someone who can help to champion your idea and get it implemented. It will need to be tested to see if it does result in a positive outcome and is cost effective. Nurses have what is needed to be successful in identifying and implementing change. The United States has an opportunity to dramatically change its health care system. The current system won’t function very well into the future due to both a shortage of physicians and nurses. It is critical for nursing to play a significant role in how our health care system is shaped and changed going forward. |
What is the role of nurse as a change agent?
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