GCU NUR514 Organizational Leadership and Informatics Week 1 Discussion

Sample Answer for GCU NUR514 Organizational Leadership and Informatics Week 1 Discussion

Week 1 Discussion

I liked when you state that when leaders set a positive example team members follow quite easily. Linneusson, G, et.al. (2022) conducted research on a small very successful unit. What they found that made their innovative transformation successful was the nurturing and innovative culture and how their unit leader displayed system thinking as a way of providing that support and vision. This is a great testimony to the positive effects of system thinking with nursing leaders and their ability to inspire team members to deliver quality results whether that be in technology as in this study or bedside nursing or other areas. I also appreciate how you broke down each IPEC competencies.

DQ1 Discuss the shift to value-based health care and its impact on the roles and responsibilities of advanced registered nurses. What major evolving trends in the health care delivery system will affect your practice in the next 3-5 years, and how do you think advanced registered nurses will continue to influence the direction of health care?

Healthcare is transitioning away from a traditional fee-for-service system to value-based care, a delivery model in which providers are compensated based on health outcomes rather than being incentivized to perform costly measures and tests (Ruby, 2021). The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act passed in 2014 emphasized the development of value-based practice. Improving a patient’s health outcomes relative to the cost of care is an aspiration embraced by stakeholders across the healthcare system, including patients, providers, health plans, employers, and government organizations. Value-based health care connects clinicians to their purpose as healers. Measured health outcomes demonstrate clinicians’ ability to achieve results with patients and families and drive improvement in the results that matter most to both patients and clinicians. Better outcomes also reduce spending and decrease the need for ongoing care. Value-based health care is one way of achieving the Institute for Health Improvement’s “triple aim”- improving the patient experience of care, improving the health of populations, and reducing the per capita cost of health care (Teisberg, et. al, 2020).

The increased access to healthcare coverage and therefore, healthcare services, brought on by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, coupled with an aging population increasing enrollment in Medicare means the need for healthcare services will continue to drastically expand. Advanced practice registered nurses will be leaders in meeting these demands.  In the hospital value-based purchasing (HVBP) initiative from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Service (CMS), payments to hospitals are adjusted based on healthcare quality data. This leads to patient-centered, team-based healthcare delivery. With APRNs being integral members of these teams, APRNs will play a vital role in hitting these benchmarks. APRNs should be well-versed in the current national guidelines for standards of care. They should participate in formal and informal peer review processes and root cause analysis. APRNs will need to play a leadership role in the design and implementation of nursing care routines and nurse-driven protocols.  APRNs should use their advanced knowledge to identify opportunities and strategies for improvement (Constable, et al, 2022).

Improving health for all requires an expanded emphasis on addressing social, economic, and environmental detriments of health. Advanced Practice Public Health Nurses (APHN) are essential to address these issues as well as to improve structures and systems in communities, and address public health crises, such as COVID-19. APHNs have the unique potential for policy impact and the opportunity to be social change agents. APHNs will help to shift the focus of health improvement from the costly, high-tech care of ill individuals to prevention and health protection that addresses the social, economic, environmental, and unjust precursors of disease and disability affecting communities (Bekemeier, etl. al, 2021).

References:

Ruby, J. (2021). The shift to value-based care has accelerated in the wake of the pandemic. Medcitynews.com. Retrieved on October 29, 2022, from https://medcitynews.com/2021/04/the-shift-to-value-based-care-has-accelerated-in-the-wake-of-the-pandemic/.

Teisber, E., Wallace, S., O’Hara, S. (2020). Defining and implementing value-based health care: A strategic framework. Academic Medicne, 95(5), 682-685. https://doi.org/10.1097/ACM.0000000000003122

Constable, M, Mulkey, M., Aucoin, J. (2022). Hospital value-based purchasing: How acute care advanced practice nurses demonstrate value. Journal of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, 34(1), 12-17. https://doi.org/10.1097/JXX.0000000000000606.

Bekemeier, B., Kuehnert, P., Zahner, S., Johnson, K., Kaneshiro, J., Swider, S. (2021). A critical gap: Advanced practice nurses focused on the public’s health. Nursing Outlook, 69(5), 865-874. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.outlook.2021.03.023.

Sample Answer 2 for GCU NUR514 Organizational Leadership and Informatics Week 1 Discussion

DQ2 From your experience, how can developing strong interprofessional relationships increase collaboration and benefit patient outcomes or organizational initiatives? What are some ways you can form an interprofessional team and collaborate with other advanced registered nurse roles? Make sure to incorporate the Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC) competencies in your response.

Health care delivery is extensive and involves more activities besides regular patient-provider engagement. Due to its complex nature, health practitioners must understand how different systems are interconnected and how they can work together to optimize patient outcomes. Systems thinking is centered on the tenet that health care professionals are a part of a large system whose components must work together to achieve a shared goal.

In health practice, systems thinking helps leaders to build strong interprofessional and organizational relationships by promoting interdependence between teams. As McNab et al. (2021) noted, adopting systems thinking implies exploring the characteristics of a system’s components and interconnecting them to improve understanding, interactions, and outcomes. From a leadership perspective, a systems approach is characterized by examining the strengths of complex systems and coupling the components that can work together to provide the best care possible. In an exploration of how systems work, Henry (2019) suggested that health care professionals must understand that they are a part of complex, adaptive systems comprised of independent parts. However, these parts should work together efficiently for the entire system to work effectively. Leaders who understand the relationships between complex systems establish solid connections and support them to thrive to improve patient outcomes and achieve other crucial objectives.

Nursing leaders can use different system thinking tools to increase interprofessional collaboration. When thinking of interprofessional collaboration, nurse leaders should seek to improve four Interprofessional Education Collaborative competencies for collaborative practice: interprofessional communication, teams and teamwork, roles/responsibilities, and values/ethics for interprofessional practice (Brashers et al., 2019). Tools that are relevant to nursing practice include concept maps and tree diagrams. Concept mapping helps leaders improve critical thinking between teams, while tree diagrams demonstrate possible outcomes when various system components work together. Another valuable tool is a spider diagram that can be used to visualize ideas and outcomes when organizing teams and predicting outcomes.

References

Brashers, V., Haizlip, J., & Owen, J. A. (2019). The ASPIRE Model: Grounding the IPEC core competencies for interprofessional collaborative practice within a foundational framework. Journal of Interprofessional Care, 34(1):128-132. https://doi.org/10.1080/13561820.2019.1624513

Henry, T. A. (2019). Why you need to be a systems thinker in health care. American Medical Association. https://www.ama-assn.org/education/accelerating-change-medical-education/why-you-need-be-systems-thinker-health-care

McNab, D., McKay, J., Shorrock, S., Luty, S., & Bowie, P. (2020). Development and application of ‘systems thinking’ principles for quality improvement. BMJ Open Quality, 9(1), e000714. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjoq-2019-000714