Nursing Advocacy

Nursing Advocacy

How Nurse Leaders Serve as Advocates for Their Employees and How Advocacy for Employees Affects Patient Care and Outcomes

Every nurse has the opportunity to have a positive impact on the profession and on the patients through daily advocacy. Unprecedented healthcare system changes are continuously impacting practice care settings. These changes include looming workforce shortage, advancing technology, financial pressure, and changes in the patient populations (Sherman, 2019)

Nursing leaders can advocate for staff by actively involving the staff in decision-making that directly affects the practice environment. Enhancement of advocacy is through staffing and scheduling, which are a collaborative process that involves self-scheduling approaches and staffing committees. The involvement of staff can help ensure flexible staffing approaches and balanced schedules that meet the needs of both the staff and patients. Additionally, proactive planning for formulating solutions to unforeseen staff shortages can facilitate staff and patient safety in unpredicted situations (Walker et al., 2015).

Nurse leaders promote advocacy when they allow staff to address concerns autonomously. Such leaders foster staff ownership over issues when they refer the said issues to staff councils and create task forces that involve another appropriate department. In such situations, the leader’s role becomes that of a coach who provides the staff with guidance, helps staff in navigating within the organization, and removes any barriers that could deter the process. Because nurses are the frontline staff that deal with patients, involving them in advocacy by letting them share their concerns will bring to light patient issues they encounter and when solutions are discussed and agreed upon, better patient outcomes are expected (Walker et al., 2015).

Opportunities are many for nurses to advocate for the profession and staff. Nurses have an opportunity to build the profession’s public image as the most trusted profession through communication and advocacy for a more accurate perception of their contributions to society and the healthcare industry.

Reference

Sherman, R. O. (2019). A new generation of nurse leaders. Nurse Leader, 17(4), 276-277.

Walker, D. K., Barton-Burke, M., Saria, M. G., Gosselin, T., Ireland, A., Norton, V., & Newton, S. (2015). Everyday advocates: nursing advocacy is a full-time job. AJN The American Journal of Nursing, 115(8), 66-70.

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Discuss how nurse leaders serve as advocates for their employees. Describe how advocacy for employees affects patient care and outcomes.