March 31, 2013, marked an important step in the USA’s health care system following the passing of the ACA legislation. This was an indication that the quality of health care and its provision in the country would see an improvement (Mason et al., 2016). However, despite all these efforts by the government to improve health care, one factor that still is necessary is strong leadership. Nurses who have strong leadership skills will have the ability to ensure that the implementation of the different policies and politics in the workforce are made possible so as to realize the vision of a transformed health care system.
More than 30 decades ago, the number of patient morbidity and mortality in relation to cardiac surgery was high. There were about 542.6 deaths per 100,000 population and 263.3 per 100,000 population of men and women respectively (Smith et al., 2015). In most instances, most of these cases were brought about by increased surgical errors. These rates were mainly experienced in the isolated valve and coronary/valve artery, bypass artery, and bypass graft procedures in most health care institutions. However, following the launching of the Campaign for Action in November 2010, the Institute of Medicine outlaid solutions that the nurses would use to build approaches so as to improve the quality and transform the way the USA citizens receive health care services. This has seen the development of evidence-based quality improvement programs which have played a huge role in reducing the morbidity and mortality incidents associated with cardiac surgery. More than 2000 hospitals in the USA are using the programs which have seen a 30% reduction in thirty-day mortality for myocardial infarction, 16% heart failure and about5%for after surgery related strokes (Smith et al., 2015).
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There are numerous methods through which nurses can use to reduce the incidences of harm on the patients. To ensure that all the nurses are transformed and see a performance improvement in the health care facility, there is the need for a nurse leader (Barker, 2016). The nurse leader will help them in understanding why there is a need for change and the positive outcomes associated with the change once it becomes implemented. Being a nurse leader, one should adopt the transformational type of leadership which will see the leader employing the use of more than one leadership style so as to get the other members of the work force performing at a level of excellence. Additionally, the leader should not only have a vision, rather, one should ensure he/she has excellent interpersonal; and communication skills which will allow one in implementing the different policies that will see an improvement in patient health care.
References
Barker, A. M. (2016). Developing leadership skills for the advance practice nurse through mentorship. In S. M. DeNisco & A. M. Barker, (Eds). Advanced nursing practice: Essential knowledge for the profession (3rd Ed.) (pp.743-748). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett. (ISBN: 9781284072570).
Mason, D. J., Gardner, D. B., Outlaw, F. H, & O’Grady, E. T. (Eds) (2016). Unit 1: Introduction to policy and politics in nursing and health care. In Policy & politics in nursing and health care (7th ed.) (1-30). St. Louis, MO: Elsevier. (ISBN: 9780323241441).
Smith, S. C., Fonarow, G. C., Piña, I. L., Suter, R., Morgan, L., Taubert, K., ... & Antman, E. (2015). Improving Quality of Cardiac Care: A Global Mandate. Revista Espanola de Cardiologia , 68 (11), 924-927.
