Nursing Leadership and the IT Initiative (1 Hour)

Another CE course that I have taken to fulfill clinical hours for this course was titled "Nursing Leadership and the IT Initiative". This 1 hour course focused on the technology aspect of nursing and how nurse leaders can successfully implement technologies into their work places. It started the course out by talking about nursing informatics. "Nursing informatics is a specialty that integrates nursing
science, computer science, and information science to manage and communicate data, information, knowledge and wisdom in nursing practice." There are four parts to implementing a new technology directive in the workplace. The first stage is implementation, then utilization, followed by adoption and finally transformation. It is important for all nurse leaders to understand each stage of the implementation process in order to effectively implement the change. I liked this quote in the class, "Implementations are 20% about the technology and 80% about the sociocultural issues such as change management, leadership, risk tolerance, incentives, etc." I love this quote because it shows how important leadership is in implementation. It is not so much about the change, but how you present the change and manage the change in the workplace.

HCAHPS Is All About Patient Satisfaction (1 Hour)

This course was all about HCAHPS. The objectives of this course was to "The goal of this program is to provide information about the benefits of patient satisfaction surveys, specifically the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems. After studying this information, you will be able to —
* Describe the benefits of patient satisfaction surveys.
* Discuss the effect of patient satisfaction scores on hospital reimbursement.
* Describe ways to increase patient satisfaction scores."
HCAHPS are a huge issue for nursing management right now. Medicaid will soon start requiring higher HCAHPS to determine reimbursement. The course explored the different survey types that HCAHPS scores are gathered from. The course also gave strategies on how to increase HCAHPS scores. Nurse management need to understand how HCAHPS scores will effect funding and how to increase those scores. This course was very relevant for anyone looking to get into nursing management.

Expert Nurse Delegation Skills: Teamwork at the Bedside (1 Hour)

The goal of this next 1 hour CE course that I took was to "gain knowledge and skills that will help improve RN leadership skills and teamwork at the bedside, ultimately resulting in optimal patient/family outcomes and staff satisfaction". I really like the idea of this course because it explores leadership at the bedside. This type of leadership is just as important if not more important then leadership in management. This course explored different causes of delegation deficit in the clinical setting. They really tried to reinforce that "complex critical thinking leadership skills requires both education and application". I love that. It takes education and application to truly develop leadership skills. The course also touched on the Five Rights of delegation. These five rights include right circumstance, right person, right task, right direction, and right supervision/feedback. These five rights are crucial in successfully delegating care. This course gave some great suggestions to being a better leader and delegator at the bedside as care as administered to the patient.

Emerging Roles and Model of Care: How to Affect Change at the Bedside (1 Hour)

The class titled, "Emerging Roles and Model of Care: How to Affect Change at the Bedside". The goals for this course were to "Describe importance of matching nursing practice and skills to future needs, not past demands, describe implications for graduate education, and explain the Campaign for Action." This course talked about current issues and trends in healthcare. As nurse leaders, we need to be educated on current events in healthcare so we can be leaders as we get involved and influence change. The healthcare reform is focused on three things, reducing cost, increasing quality and improving safety. This course gave great advice on how to become involved in influencing healthcare policy. There are many organizations that nurses can join that offer resources to become involved in healthcare policy. This course also encouraged nurses to seek higher and advanced degrees. There is a need for more nurses with advanced degrees in the healthcare system. These nurses are needed to replace the current leaders that will eventually retire and leave the workforce. This course was a good broad course that really covered current trends that all nurses need to be informed about.

Create Your “Nursing Dream Team” by Bridging Generation Gaps (1 Hour)

Another CE class that I took was titled "Create your Nursing Dream Team by Bridging the Generation Gaps". Nurse managers and leaders will have to work with a variety of different people from different generations. Understanding and bridging the generation gap is an important part in becoming an effective leader. This course broke down the four generations that are currently in the workforce. There are the traditionalists or veterans born between 1920-1943. There are boomers born between 1943-1960. The Gen X generation were born between 1960-1980. The Gen-Y and Net-Gen were born between 1980-2000. Despite this categorization of the generations, it is important to remember and the course did point out not to stereotype. Each person is individualized and not all will adhere to the qualities of their generation. Each generation has a different approach to work and to how things were when they entered the workforce. Communication styles differ from one generation to another. Traditionalists prefer face to face, while Gen-Y and Net-Gen are much more likely to use technology to communicate. Leaders and managers in nursing need to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each generation and how to effectively communicate with each generation. By understanding and educating themselves, leaders can then more effectively lead a team made up of multitude of generations.

Conquering Conflict in the Clinical Setting (1 Hour)

Another CE class I have decided to take for the clinical hours of my Nursing Leadership class is titled "Conquering Conflict in the Clinical Setting". The goal of this class was to identify sources of conflict in the clinical setting and developing skills to overcoming that conflict. Conflict is a topic that is very much related to leadership and management. Being in a management role means that at some point or another you will run into conflict. As the leader or manager, you would then have to be able to overcome the conflict. Conflict can be very destructive in the clinical setting. This class stated conflict can be destructive when it "diverts energy away from the goal, destroys morale, reduces cooperation, intensifies value differences, and produces irresponsible behavior". On the flipside conflict can be constructive when it "opens up issues, leads to problem solving, increases involvement, causes honest communication, allows release of emotions, helps build team spirit, and helps individuals grow." This class explored both types of conflict and gave some good strategies for nurse managers and leaders. They gave examples of words to avoid in communication to avoid destructive conflict and words to use to promote constructive conflict. They gave a strategy to approach conflict called the "AEIOU" approach. A for assuming the person means well. E for expressing your thoughts and feelings. I for identifying what you would like to have happen. O for the outcome you expect. and U for understanding on a mutual basis. Some examples of using this approach was explored. I really appreciated this course and took away some great strategies for dealing with conflict in a management role.