The Clinical Nurse Leader’ Role: Risk Anticipator

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Table of Contents

Introduction to the Topic
Relevance of Risk Anticipation to the CNL Role
Future Implications for Nursing Practice
Conclusion
References

Introduction to the Topic

The clinical nurse leader (CNL) must use his or her dexterities in order to facilitate direct care to the targeted patients. The CNL usually collaborates with the professionals in a given unit or department to assess patients, offer adequate support, meet health needs, and design sustainable care delivery models (Hodgson & Scanlan, 2013). The leader takes up a wide range of roles in an attempt to maximize patients’ outcomes. Some of these roles include that of a team manager, client advocate, educator, and risk anticipator. Competent CNLs should be able to interpret the trends in data in an attempt to improve the nature of care delivery.

They should incorporate powerful values that can result in culturally competent care and apply concepts of systems theory and improvement science (Galuska, 2012). When such roles are completed successfully, the CNLs can become pioneers of timely, evidence-based, quality, and personalized nursing care. The discussion presented below explores the relevance of the CNL’s role of a risk anticipator in an emergency department (ED) and how it can transform the field of nursing.

Relevance of Risk Anticipation to the CNL Role

The presence of a clinical nurse leader (CNL) in an emergency department can make a significant difference and support the health outcomes of the targeted patients. In the ED, the CNL becomes a competent risk anticipator who can eventually identify potential weaknesses that can result in poor health care delivery. The CNL goes further to use the best skills to implement or promote better practices that can result in quality care. Chances of recording various errors reduce significantly whenever the CNL embraces the concept of risk anticipation (American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2013). This ability makes it easier for the caregivers, teams, nurse aids, nurses, and other workers in the emergency department to focus on the unique needs of the targeted patients.

As a risk anticipator in the department, the CNL will engage in continuous review of the existing systems. By so doing, the leader will be able to evaluate the situation in a critical manner. He or she will be in a position to anticipate specific risks and factors that can affect the health care delivery models existing in the ED (Nokes & Gilmartin, 2015). The next thing is using powerful competencies such as management, planning, critical thinking, and problem solving to promote new practices that have the potential to improve the quality of care available to the patients in the emergency department (Schnall et al., 2012). The CNL will liaise with different actors in the department to identify the potential risks that can disorient the existing healthcare delivery processes.

This attribute of the CNL is usually supported by several directions of care. The first one is care outcome (Hodgson & Scanlan, 2013). The risk anticipator will identify new opportunities that can result in adequate patient care. At the same time, the leader will outline some of the potential barriers to adequate care delivery. The next direction is that of education. The risk anticipator becomes a competent educator who encourages his or her followers to embrace new concepts that can result in quality care in the ED. Advocating for the targeted clients is the other direction embraced by risk anticipators (Hodgson & Scanlan, 2013). The CNL identifies some of the best initiatives and approaches that must be embraced in an attempt to support the needs of the targeted clients.

The risk anticipator will therefore use these directions and competencies to anticipate risks, improve the quality of care delivery in the ED, and eventually prevent sentinel events. When these goals are met, the client will be able to receive quality and evidence-based care. This discussion shows conclusively that the role played by a CNL as a risk anticipator in a hospital’s ED is important (Bender, Connelly, Glaser, & Brown, 2012). This happens to be the case because the role has the potential to support the nature and effectiveness of the nursing profession.

The roles CNLs play as risk anticipators are critical within the nursing profession. Galuska (2012) believes strongly that such roles bring together the unique directions of care that define the profession. For instance, risk anticipators focus on the best concepts in order to become client advocates, nurse educators, and promoters of effective care. When analyzed from a critical perspective, this kind of practice appears to complement the aspects of nursing (Nokes & Gilmartin, 2015).

For instance, nurses should embrace the best concepts in order to provide evidence-based, quality, personalized, sustainable, and culturally sensitive care. As risk anticipators, nurses will identify the existing gaps that can affect or disorient the quality of care available to the targeted patients (Bender, 2014). That being the case, CNLs and professionals within the nursing profession should embrace the concepts associated with risk anticipation.

This kind of approach will ensure every nurse and caregiver participates in review of systems and anticipating of various risks that can affect quality of care. The next move is coming up with better practices that can result in client safety. Secondly, nurses will embrace the role of a risk anticipator to improve their practices and eventually reduce most of the errors encountered in various healthcare settings (Potratz, 2012). The practice will eventually transform the profession and support the emerging needs of many underserved populations.

Future Implications for Nursing Practice

The selected topic for this paper is something that has not been taken seriously by medical professionals for many years. Past studies and analyses have mainly focused on the unique roles of nurses and CNLs in emergency departments. Such studies have encouraged nurses to consider some of the unique concepts that can result in evidence-based care. However, the role CNLs plays by becoming competent risk anticipators in EDs can be used to transform the future of nursing practice (Bender, 2014). From the above discussion, it is evident that the role of a risk anticipator is to design new healthcare delivery channels that are characterized by reduced errors and exemplary patient services (Bender et al., 2012). These aspects will definitely inform the nursing profession in the future.

The risk anticipation concept in the field will become a powerful tool that can dictate the other competencies associated with nursing. For example, nurses who take up the roles of a risk anticipator will be able to manage their followers, make accurate care delivery decisions, identify potential risks, and design better systems that can result in positive results (Raines, 2013). The nurses will use the idea to solve problems, mentor their followers, and address the major gaps affecting service delivery.

Since the ultimate goal is to get rid of obstacles and risks before the present disastrous results, the anticipators will collaborate with different stakeholders such as physicians, family members, caregivers, and nurse aids (Jackson, Davidson, & Hutchinson, 2014). The approach will go further to ensure every targeted patient in the ED receives evidence-based, culturally competent, and personal care.

Nurses embracing the new role will find it easier to mentor and educate their followers or teammates. They will become advocates of quality care. They will also focus on the concept of lifelong learning in order to widen their competencies. Consequently, the risk anticipation approach will ensure the right human resources in the ED are aimed at promoting the quality of patient care (Raines, 2013).

The above role can therefore become a critical attribute of nursing. When this is done, more practitioners and caregivers working in the emergency department will be willing to become competent risk anticipators. This will also be the same case for nurses working in the other departments. By so doing, the nurses will constantly participate in systems review and critically evaluate the situations experienced in their departments (Jackson et al., 2014). The approach will also make it easier for them to anticipate risks and promote client safety. The identified risks will be tackled immediately in order to improve quality of patient care. New care delivery models will emerge and eventually support the diverse needs of the targeted ED patients.

Conclusion

When this knowledge is embraced in the field of nursing, more practitioners will focus on some of the best attributes known to dictate the performance of every hospital setting. These attributes include provision of safe care and empowerment of practitioners (Thompson & Hyrkas, 2014). In conclusion, the role CNLs play by becoming risk anticipators in the EDs can be embraced by different professionals in nursing in order to become skilled providers of culturally sensitive care.

References

American Association of Colleges of Nursing. (2013). Competencies and curricular expectations for clinical nurse leader education and practice. Web.

Bender, M. (2014). The current evidence base for the clinical nurse leader: A narrative review of the literature. Journal of Professional Nursing, 30(2), 110-123. Web.

Bender, M., Connelly, C., Glaser, D., & Brown, C. (2012). Clinical nurse leader impact on microsystem care quality. Nursing Research, 61(5), 326-332. Web.

Galuska, L. (2012). Cultivating nursing leadership for our envisioned future. Advances in Nursing Science, 35(4), 333-345. Web.

Hodgson, A., & Scanlan, J. (2013). A concept analysis of mentoring in nursing leadership. Open Journal of Nursing, 3(1), 389-394. Web.

Jackson, D., Davidson, M., & Hutchinson, M. (2014). The importance of clinical leadership in the hospital setting. Journal of Healthcare Leadership, 6(1), 1-16. Web.

Nokes, K., & Gilmartin, M. (2015). Are personality characteristics of Clinical Nurse Leader graduate nursing students related to culturally competent nursing care? Journal of Nursing Education and Practice, 5(5), 1-9. Web.

Potratz, E. (2012). Transforming care at the bedside: A model to promote staff nurse empowerment and engagement. Nursing Theses, 1(1), 1-57. Web.

Raines, D. (2013). The impact of the clinical nurse leader/navigator on clinical outcomes and patient satisfaction. UNF Digital Commons, 1(1), 1-117. Web.

Schnall, R., Cook, S., John, R., Larson, E., Stone, P., Sullivan, C.,…Bakken, S. (2012). Patient safety issues in advanced practice nursing students’ care settings. Journal of Nursing Care Quality, 27(2), 132-138. Web.

Thompson, P., & Hyrkas, K. (2014). Global nursing leadership. Journal of Nursing Management, 22(1), 1-3. Web.

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