External Factors that Influence a Nurse Manager’s Decision Making

 

 Provide an overview of the role of the nurse manager

The nurse manager is responsible for the supervision role whereby she supervises the staff in the hospital. She oversees the care of the patients, makes decisions concerning budgets and management. She is also responsible for setting the working plans, organizing and managing meetings, and is an ultimate decision-maker. The nurse manager’s role is to create a nontoxic and healthy setting for the healthcare team and this helps to contribute to the standard care of the patient. She is liable for influencing the professional environment and nurture a culture where the team members can contribute to the care of the patients and also grow professionally Deyo, Swartwout & Drenkard (2016). Other than making critical decisions that help in the care of the patient, the nurse manager also is liable for other duties that include, management of staff and cases, planning of treatment, and discharging of patients. She is also responsible for recruitment and mentoring, coming up with educational plans, and managing records.

A nurse manager’s role associated with the impact on the policies of health is viewed to be challenging (Bogaert, Peremans, Wit, Heusden, Timmermans, & Havens 2015). This is regarding the difficult needs of the patient and the staff being involved in the process of deciding on the healthcare settings. The influence on the health policy of a nurse manager is responsible for protecting the standard care by enabling access to the needed resources and prospects. It is also capable of influencing decisions and other affairs that are associated with health and healthcare through political awareness, communication, and relationships with other associates of the staff. This helps in improving the work environs and increases the outcome of patients meaning that it increases the quality of care. This process is associated with the knowledge, skills, influence, support, and their capability to change. Each of the nurses has different individual views on the issues related to health and their influence on this process and the outcome of the patient. With the rapid change and development of the health systems, nurses who are a part and parcel of the system must embrace the changes and developments.

The impact of regulatory agencies on decision making according to Bogaert et al. (2015) is that health system guidelines are ranked differently in three categories. There is a category of those policies that are not essentially generated by the government. The other category includes policies that are developed for the entire country and have been developed by the government. The last category includes policies that are in the middle of the other two policies and are normally developed by the authorized administrations. The use of the three levels of policies is important in nursing management to clarify and define the policy influence concept. When the concept is clarified, a common language is arrived at and this helps in increasing the credibility of future studies.

Hospitals have to make a profit to enable them to continue existing. The rise of the number of cases in hospitals has led to the perception that the admission of patients, their treatment, and discharge are influenced by not only the medical aspects but by economic factors too. This is done with the perception of making a profit and this has led to the decision making process become partly commercialized (Wehkamp, & Naegler 2017). The current economic conditions are causing a big influence on medical care negatively impacting the patients, physicians, and nurses. The economic pressure on a hospital can undermine the independence of medical decision making. When a patient is starting treatment, they put their trust in the physician taking care of them and the hospital itself. This is because the physician’s principle is to maintain and restore the health of the patient. This principle is violated when a medical decision making in the hospital is impacted by non-physicians on financial grounds that the wellbeing of the patients is no longer represented by the paramount duty. Limited financial resources influence in a big way the medical and managerial actions. Losses incurred in hospitals are compensated by profits that are generated from the treatment of patients.

Analysis of the interview

The decision making for a nurse manager is a significant process of making judgments in regards to the care of the patient and management. A nurse should be capable of using their skills of decision making to ensure the providence of safe and effective nursing care. There is a rise in demand for healthcare services over the last years whereas the health systems have been faced with a lot of challenges because of the limited financial resources, increased cost of healthcare and demand, and finally expectations from the public (Alaseeri, Rajab & Banakhar 2019). For nurses to be able to respond to the patient’s nursing care needs, they are required to be competent decision-makers hence being able to thrive in the uncertain nature of the healthcare environment. Nurses are often needed to make clinical, non-clinical, ethical, management, and practice decisions every time they have to deal with a patient. They make decisions during the process of nursing in the clinical care of the patient to determine interventions and consequences by the use of clinical reasoning skills.

Research shows that a nurse manager makes very many critical decisions concerning a patient which can affect their safety, standard care, and their outcomes. The factors that influence the nurse’s decision making are the nurse’s personal and patient attributes, organizational, and environmental factors. The nurse’s attributes are known to be the nursing experience, clinical knowledge, demographic factors, self-rule, and assertiveness about the care of the patient (Alaseeri, Rajab & Banakhar 2019). The organizational factors are the interrelations between the multidisciplinary team, the hospital's vision and mission, the policies and rules of a hospital, and its resources. Despite the significance of the decision making of a nurse, some barriers impact the process of making decisions in hospitals. The unacquainted nurse aspects of decision making have a negative contribution to the performance of a nurse, the organizational, and consequences of the care of the patient. Barriers that negatively impact the quality of care and professional decision making include overworking, critical patient conditions, inadequate time, stressful situations, insufficient training about making decisions in the practice, insufficient awareness on how to handle a situation, and lack of resources. It is therefore important to improve the capability of a nurse to make the right decisions and know how they should handle situations despite them being critical to achieving the desired consequences for the patient and the healthcare institution.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

Alaseeri R., Rajab A. & Banakhar M. (2019). Factors Influencing Nurses’ Decision-Making

Process: An Integrative Literature Review. Journal of Nursing and Health Science (IOSR-JNHS). 8(4) 36-48 www.iosrjournals.orgDOI: 10.9790/1959-0804023648www.iosrjournals.org

Deyo, P., Swartwout, E., & Drenkard, K. (2016). Nurse manager competencies supporting

patient engagement. JONA: The Journal of Nursing Administration, 46(3), S19-S26.

Van Bogaert, P., Peremans, L., de Wit, M., Van Heusden, D., Franck, E., Timmermans, O., &

Havens, D. S. (2015). Nurse Managers' perceptions and experiences regarding staff nurse empowerment: a qualitative study. Frontiers in psychology, 6, 1585. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01585

Wehkamp, K. H., & Naegler, H. (2017). The Commercialization of Patient-Related Decision

Making in Hospitals. Deutsches Arzteblatt international, 114(47), 797–804. https://doi.org/10.3238/arztebl.2017.0797