Introduction
Quality improvement in the sphere of healthcare refers to the set of initiatives that seek to ensure better patient care. To achieve that, the medical institutions create teams that include professionals of various backgrounds, including physicians, nursing staff, educators, hospital managers, and laboratory directors, to name a few. This allows collecting the expertise, experience, and various viewpoints of all the stakeholders involved in order to deliver the best possible decision. In this regard, advanced registered nurse practitioners (ARNPs) play an important role in this process.
Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioners’ Role in Quality Improvement
In their everyday practice, ARNPs operate as leaders in two distinct spheres. On the one hand, patient-centered leadership encompasses patient advocacy, education, and meaningful communication with clients (Lamb et al., 2018). On the other hand, system-oriented leadership consists of bridging the interactions between medical professionals and patients, adding clinician expertise, and enhancement of nursing practice (Lamb et al., 2018). For these reasons, nurse professionals in my communities could add greatly to healthcare quality improvement. In particular, they promote patient education through various forms as it is positively associated with better compliance with medication and treatment plans. Additionally, ARNPs continuously propose improvements in the hospital environment. In a similar vein, they make suggestions concerning data collection and reporting procedures. Last but not least, ARNPs propose initiatives that promote holistic care, which includes not only physical care but patients’ mental well-being as well.
Conclusion
Overall, it is seen that ARNPs play an important leading role in the process of healthcare quality improvement. Although they often may not be official team leaders, their expertise and knowledge help them to act as informal group guiders in many instances. I think that is possible because nurses spend significant time with patients and understand them better than any other professional in the healthcare facility. Moreover, the fact that ARNPs possess considerable skills and assume various responsibilities leads to the breadth of vision that their colleagues lack.
Reference
Lamb, A., Martin-Misener, R., Bryant-Lukosius, D., & Latimer, M. (2018). Describing the leadership capabilities of advanced practice nurses using a qualitative descriptive study. Nursing Open, 5(3), 400-413.