N550 Module 8 Assignment 3 Interview and Summative Paper

Student Name

Aspen University

Nursing 550 Nursing Administration Practicum I

Professor Name

Date

Interview and Summative Paper

Professional standards play an important part in the regulation of nursing practice and leadership. These standards define the quality of care, ethical practice, and professional growth to serve as a guide that will make nurses continue to offer their best to their patients. For nurse administrators, it is important to follow these standards to establish the knowledge, competence, and intellectual propensity pertinent to administrative functions and management of the nursing workforce. This assessment intends to find out how professional standards have assisted nurse administrators in developing their competencies.

To achieve an understanding of this concept, I will conduct a personal interview with a nurse leader from my organization. From this interview, I expect to get principles and measures that govern these standards as well as their effects on leadership choices and actions. For this interview, the specific nurse leader I have selected is Cheryl Robinson MSN, RN, Supervisor of the Community Care Network at Marietta Memorial Hospital. Cheryl has experience in critical care and community nursing. She has been a nursing faculty member and has been a nursing leader spanning more than 30 years.

Identifying a Nurse Leader

The nurse leader that has graciously agreed to participate in my interview is Cheryl Robinson, MSN, RN. She is the Supervisor of the Community Care Network at Marietta Memorial Hospital. Cheryl has been practicing nursing for the last 30 years. She started her career as a critical care nurse, advanced to a critical manager for 10 years, and worked as a community nurse. She decided to pursue her master’s in nursing and after completion she became a nursing faculty member at West Virginia University, Parkersburg, West Virginia. Cheryl retired from teaching 5 years ago and joined Marietta Memorial as Supervisor of the Community Care Network.

She has continued to work not only as a leader but an instructor for the program. She can be deemed appropriate for this interview based on her profound experience and commitment to the delivery of quality services. As a Supervisor, Cheryl oversees the nursing and college health coaching students which entails ensuring that they are providing safe, efficient, and effective patient care while practicing according to evidence-based findings. She has been active in leading several strategies and projects geared towards enhancing the quality of patient care as well as preserving organizational standards (Specchia et al., 2021). She is an encouraging leader and if there are any issues or challenges faced by the team, she is always ahead of them trying to find solutions.

Development of Interview Questions

To analyze the role of professional standards in nursing leadership, I have drawn up ten interview questions. This employs questions derived from professional standards as per the American Nurses Association (ANA) and Magnet Recognition Program. These standards focus on behavioral levels in a professional role including, ethics, cultural congruent tactics, communication, collaboration, leadership, education, evidence-based practice, quality care, professional conduct, resource utilization and environmental health.

1. Can you explain how you have used environmental health within your professional practice?

Cheryl shared that within nursing environmental health is a piece of practice that can help the patient feel safe, relaxed, and with this heal. The same effect is seen within her staff. If they are comfortable in the environment, then stress is decreased, and the nurse can focus on treating their patients. Cheryl stated that she works with staff to keep the atmosphere light, quiet, and welcoming. Her team works together to keep sounds and talking to a very low level and when the patient or family is near the staff members are welcoming and responsive. This behavior and the environmental surrounds also provide a trusting feeling within the patient. Also, a confidence boost she stated.

2. In what ways can you monitor and enforce professional nursing standards to check compliance by your team?

Cheryl stated that she plans time and uses different resources to monitor, audit, and validate professional performance. She has validation days, requires staff to complete learning stations based on new practice protocols. She also uses resources from inside and outside the organization to help ensure her staff are using evidence-based practice within their care for the patient. This measurement and resource use helps elevate her teams’ practice (Specchia et al., 2021). Cheryl’s response showed that resource utilization is not only supplies, or equipment, but also includes time and resources that help the team improve and ensure Cheryl is validating the continued professional development.

3. In what way can the professional standards help nurture the competencies that are helpful for the nurse administration?

Cheryl reminded me that to continue a nursing licensure continuing education is required. She does her continuing education as part of her professional development, and she is working continuously on reviewing and learning new evidence-based practice for her professional development. She also reviews research articles and in her past positions did several research projects that helped her grow. Attending conferences to hear from other professionals is a way that Cheryl learns new information and expands her network. Finally, she said she has her critical care certification which was another way she said she expanded her knowledge and continued to work towards professional development.

Conducting the Interview

I completed the interview with Cheryl Robinson MSN, RN. The session was an informative and comprehensive one, providing insights into how professional standards are applied in leadership within nursing. Some of the areas where Cheryl described specific use of these standards during discussion included passion and examples from her work experience. During the interview, she expressed a lot of professionalism, which can be noted as a fundamental aspect of her leadership. Cheryl illustrated that these standards are not only part of her decision-making system but also part of the model culture and practices in her team. Cheryl started by sharing her view on how professionalism shapes the manner in which she leads other people. She included that as a leader, one must set a precedent and practice what one wants others to do. She says that this approach creates checks and balances and engenders performance and professionalism.

Analysis of the Interview

Cheryl Robinson’s interview highlighted the importance of professionalism to academic practice in nursing leadership. She explained how those standards help her in decision-making and guarantee quality patient care outcomes. She used examples to show that the standards are not only useful for compliance with the rules, but they are essential for the prevention of unethical actions and are committed to constant development (Nilsen et al., 2020). Some of the challenges that Cheryl faced when implementing the standards include the solution to the challenges, ways of ascertaining the effectiveness of the standards, and the usefulness for nurse administrators. Her dedication to keeping up with these professional standards in addition to encouraging professional practice enterprises within her personnel highlights just how critical such standards are in attaining the ideal of nursing excellence. Lastly, the ideas presented in the interview re-emphasized the importance of professionalism in designing nursing leadership while enhancing patient care.

Conclusion

The interview showed that Cheryl Robinson MSN, RN, has attributed leadership in professional standards in nursing. They are used in decision making, assure quality of healthcare delivery, and in ethical practice. Cheryl’s learning and practice demonstrated the way professional standards are operationalized to promote the nursing culture of cogent responsibility and high standards among the staff. I also found the ways she countered all these challenges and how she came up with the method of measuring the effectiveness of such standards insightful.

I have gained much broader and extensive insights from this interview about the professional standards of nursing leadership. Listening to Cheryl’s stories and references today made me aware that it is not just about following these standards, but they are critical enablers that enhance leadership and promote patient care. She stressed the importance of its importance and ongoing education on these principles to ensure the highest level of care. In conclusion, the knowledge imparted in this interview will help me significantly as a nurse administrator in the future.