The Nursing Self-Care Problem Change Project

NB: We do not resell your papers. Upon ordering, we do an original paper exclusively for you.

NB: All your data is kept safe from the public.

Summary

This presentation addresses the self-care problem within the nursing industry and proposes an action plan to be implemented in the near future to enact changes and increase the nursing department’s effectiveness. Firstly, the proposal utilizes the SWOT analysis to conduct a primary assessment of the plan regarding its implementation’s failure or success. Secondly, this project addresses each component of the action plan, including the suggested change theory model, communication plan, appropriate leadership style, and management functions that need to be utilized. Finally, the presentation analyzes the decision-making process used, examining its effective and ineffective sides and proposing the corresponding changes in the future.

Self-care is an important aspect of nursing

Nursing work is always associated with significant amounts of stress, which is why it is essential to promote self-care among nurses in order to decrease the adverse effects of their professional activity. Nowadays, the healthcare environment changes constantly and rapidly, and the stressful nature of the nursing profession might cause devastating consequences not only for nurses but also for their patients. Thereby, this project aims to develop a self-care initiative cultivating practice environments in the hospital to support nurses’ self-care. For the purposes of this project, Lippitt’s change theory, created in 1958, will be utilized. This model extends the preceding force-field framework suggested by Lewin several years earlier. Lippitt’s change model focuses not on the evolution of changes but on the change agents and what they must do to reach the desired outcomes.

SWOT analysis

First, it is crucial to conduct a SWOT analysis of the proposed plan before discussing its separate steps and processes since healthcare leadership requires leaders to understand a plan’s consequences before taking action on implementing it. The hospital will gain a significant advantage from the project’s strengths if the plan is successfully implemented. They include a thoroughly analyzed implementation process, reasonably chosen change theory and leadership style, and the usage of the necessary tools, such as a communication plan, management functions, and a plan for handling potential issues. Additionally, the project will provide the hospital with opportunities to improve patient care and increase nurses’ effectiveness and employee satisfaction. Should the plan fail to be implemented, its weaknesses, such as the absence of information regarding each nurse’s unique features and emotional conditions, might endanger the hospital’s activity, threatening to decrease nurses’ effectiveness and quality of care. However, weaknesses and threats identified during the SWOT analysis will be addressed with the help of the emotional leadership style, which will be further discussed.

The rationale for choosing Lippitt’s change theory

The rationale for choosing Lippitt’s change theory over other similar models lies in its elements that strongly correlate with the objectives of the self-care initiative. Firstly, Lippitt’s theory significantly relies on successfully using communication skills throughout the change process, especially during the planning phase. Those skills will be a critical part of the project for two reasons: first, they will help address the plan’s weaknesses; second, they are required for the communication plan, which will be discussed further. Then, the rationale for choosing Lippitt’s theory for this project is associated with the model’s steps, which include motivation assessment and change maintenance. The proposed plan’s success partially depends on the nurses’ motivation to utilize self-care concepts within their work. Furthermore, the initiative’s effectiveness will significantly decrease if the hospital does not succeed in maintaining the changes once they have been established.

The rationale for implementing the program

Modern healthcare studies contain much data regarding the effect the specificities of the nursing profession can have on nurses. Working with patients during basic, complicated, and even intimate care processes can be a stressful experience, which is why medical professionals should pay significant attention to self-care to avoid distress and burnout. Furthermore, it is vital to remember that each nurse is an individual with their own feelings, emotions, and life problems that may be stressful, as well. Nurses have to deal with those issues and emotional pressures correlated with their profession simultaneously, increasing the importance of self-care in the healthcare industry. In addition, medical professionals face pain, disease, and even death on an everyday basis, which makes it challenging for nurses to cope with their working environment. Everything described above created a devastating amount of stress for nurses, and it is essential to implement the self-care initiative to help the hospital’s employees and improve its performance.

Steps of the plan

According to the plan, the self-care initiative will be implemented through several stages following Lippitt’s change theory model. The first phase is the assessment, and the first step is already completed since the problem and opportunity were identified during this plan’s creation. The following step is data collection and analysis: as per Lippitt’s theory, it is required to assess motivation. The team working on the plan’s implementation will need to interview the hospital’s nurses to discuss the issue of self-care. The planning stage goes next: it is necessary to ensure that nurses are ready for new ways of thinking and behaving and that the hospital, as the change agent, has enough resources and motivation to work on the plan, as per Lippitt’s theory. The team will use the collected data and plan various interventions to promote self-care among nurses, preparing for the implementation stage. It, in turn, will involve giving nurses information about the importance of self-care to change their perceptions and attitudes. Finally, the last stage of the plan involves evaluating its overall effectiveness and stabilizing the change. The team will evaluate how nurses’ attitudes to self-care will have changed and how it will have affected the hospital’s performance. If the evaluation results are positive, the change maintenance will be the remaining step.

Communication plan

The success of the self-care initiative depends on how the employees perceive it, making the communication plan a critical part of the project, as the nurses should receive the information properly to avoid ambiguity. Lippitt’s theory emphasizes the importance of communication, making it easier to conduct an appropriate communication plan for this project. Firstly, the project team will need to establish a strict context of the instructions: the follower will not understand the leader if they do not have a clear mind on the plan. Secondly, nurses’ positive attention is significant since it is vital to ensure that any factors interfering with perceiving instructions need to be eliminated. Thirdly, the instructions need to be clear and concise, given in an inoffensive and non-defensive style to establish mutual understanding between the leader and the nurses. Then, verification should be conducted through feedback to ensure that the hospital’s employees have understood the instructions as expected. Finally, follow-up communication is required throughout the project to maintain the instructions’ clearance and answer the nurses’ questions, if any occur.

Emotional leadership

Successful implementation of the plan will depend on using an appropriate leadership style. Emotional leadership is the framework that corresponds with the project’s goals entirely. The primary reason for choosing this model is one of emotional intelligence’s main components, personal competence. It includes self-awareness, the knowledge related to the self-care issue, and self-management, the ability to utilize the instructions given and act and behave correspondingly. Additionally, emotional leadership correlates with Lippitt’s change theory in terms of assessing people’s motivation. This leadership model will allow the project team to understand the nurses better, gaining a clear insight into their attitudes and values. The emotional connection established between the nurses and the leader will ease the promotion of self-care, improve nurses’ motivation to behave according to the plan, increase their job satisfaction, and achieve positive results at the stage of the plan implementation.

Management functions

Management functions that will be utilized for the purposes of this project include planning, organizing, directing, and controlling. The first function will mainly be implemented during the planning stage as it is associated with establishing goals, evaluating the current situation and resources, and formulating a plan to implement it further. Then, the organizing function will be utilized to create an efficient system of giving instructions to the nurses. The following function, directing, will help the nurses to adjust to the initiative’s principles, motivating them to self-care through effective communication. Finally, the controlling functions will be utilized to compare the project’s actual results with the intended ones to evaluate the plan’s effectiveness.

Budget requirements

This project’s primary goal is to inform the hospital’s employees about the importance of self-care and promote self-care and correlated activities among the nurses. Therefore, the project does not require major financial investments since it is not associated with any high costs. However, the variable budget approach is recommended for this initiative as some potential adjustments to the budget may be required during the plan implementation.

A workgroup

One of the ways to announce changes in the hospital is by using a workgroup. A team of people with a specific task can be trusted with it, and they can help the nurses who have some questions right after presenting the information to them. However, such a group will require several people, meaning that additional workforces must be utilized in order to complete the assignment. Moreover, that group will have to take some time before every nurse in the hospital has been informed.

An e-mail

Another way to inform personnel about the upcoming changes is to send them an e-mail using the mailing distribution system. It will not require an additional workforce and can inform every staff member quickly. However, e-mails can be unreliable since there is no guarantee that all the nurses will read them on time, and someone may not even receive it. Furthermore, the nurses who have questions about the changes will not be able to get answers immediately, which may undermine the communication plan’s effectiveness. Considering the advantages and disadvantages of the analyzed methods, it is recommended to use both workgroups and e-mails to inform the hospital’s personnel.

Handling potential issues

Potential issues that may occur during the project include non-compliance, late majority, laggards, and rejecters. However, each of these problems can be handled utilizing a single method – explaining the importance of self-care to the nurses. This initiative primarily intends to improve the nurses’ well-being, and increasing the hospital’s effectiveness is only a second priority. Therefore, it is in the employees’ interest to accept this program and adjust to it. The managing task, in this case, is to help the nurses understand how they can benefit from the upcoming changes, encouraging the hospital’s personnel to comply.

Evaluating the Project’s effectiveness

Several factors will demonstrate whether the project will be effective. Firstly, high levels of acceptance among the nurses will mean the success of the program’s implementation. Secondly, the hospital’s employees will be asked to give feedback regarding the self-care initiative, and a positive response will signify the plan’s effectiveness. Finally, further long-distance improvements in patient outcomes, quality of care, and the hospital’s overall performance will be the last and the most important factor illustrating the success of the self-care initiative.

Decision-making process

The decision-making process used to create the self-care initiative involved several stages. They included problem identification, consideration of different methods to enact changes, creation of the plan draft based on a particular change theory, assessment of the advantages and disadvantages of that plan, and the final evaluation. The decisions at each stage of the process were made based on the project’s primary objectives, the nature of the environment (the hospital), and the potential benefits the hospital and its nurses could gain from this initiative. (Utilizing a change theory and applying a specific leadership style were effective decisions that helped create a thoroughly analyzed and detailed change plan. However, the comparison of informing methods, namely work groups and e-mails, was ineffective as the decision to utilize both methods was made. The plan’s creation process should be more accurate in the future to avoid taking unnecessary steps and wasting time.)

References

Andrews, H., Tierney, S., & Seers, K. (2020). Needing permission: The experience of self-care and self-compassion in nursing: A constructivist grounded theory study. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 101.

Labrague, L. J., McEnroe–Petitte, D. M., Tsaras, K., Cruz, J. P., Colet, P. C., & Gloe, D. S. (2018). Organizational commitment and turnover intention among rural nurses in the Philippines: Implications for nursing management. International Journal of Nursing Sciences, 5(4), 403-408.

Sullivan, E. J. (2012). Effective leadership and management in nursing (8th ed.). Pearson.

Click Here To Order Now!